It just keeps happening.

Might not finish this one in one sitting. For some reason, sitting in front of the computer makes me sleepy now. How the fuck did that happen? It’s not like I use the computer before going to sleep every night. In fact that never happens.

I have a vague idea that it might be due to temperature. Tht’s all I got.

Anyhow, Rapture Palooza. The basic idea is that The Rapture happens, around half the population of Earth got Raptured right into Heaven, and the plagues from Revelations happen. First the locusts, which can talk and tend to shout “SUFFER!” at people, the blood rain, the wraiths (who have a weakness for pot, because honestly, potheads worship any movie with pot references in it), the fiery rocks falling from the sky.

The Antichrist has risen, and chosen to live in the film’s location, Seattle (suggesting it was filmed in Vancouver), because apparently he’s a big Mariners fan. Also in Seattle are two very modern (in other words, sort of depressive seeing) young people whose dreams of having their own food cart (see? Modern!) are smashed by one of those flaming rocks, causing them to finally agree to go to work with the male (Ben)’s dad at the mansion of, you guessed it, the Antichrist. Because wackiness, The Antichrist ends up falling for the female protagonist (Lindsey) and wants to make her the receptacle of his evil seed so she can be mother to a whole host of Devil babies.

Thus, Ben and Lindsey have no choice but to thwart The Beast’s plans or have to face the unthinkable : a pretty white girl having sex with a black dude who isn’t even good looking.

I kid, I kid.

It’s an okay flick, but kind of underwhelming. The two main character’s understated hipster-generation reactions to things and while that fits with how people their age are portrayed in media, it kind of undermines any sort of drama.

I mean, I know it’s a comedy, but there still has to be some sense of tension and risk.

Instead, there is this underinflated feeling to the flick. Listless, even. The movie doesn’t unfold so much as just drift by without making any attempt at eye contact.

And the thing is, on paper, this movie has a lot of things I like in it. It has an amusingly irreverent attitude, it has a great cast (including Rob Corddry as Ben’s father), it has a lot of fun with the whole idea of the Rapture, and it has a lot to do with Heaven, Hell, God, the Devil, et al.

And I love that kind of thing!

But the movie is too listless to connect with emotionally, and so after watching it, all I could say was “Well… that was okay. I guess. ” Which is exactly the kind of lifeless, enthusiasm-free response the protagonists would give.

That is probably not a coincidence. Did we Gen X’ers fuck up parenting so bad that we have raised a generation of depressives?

I mean, Gen X was afraid to show enthusiasm too, but at least we had enough life in us to be bitter.

Anyhow, I can’t really recommend this movie. There are bright spots. Anna Gasteyer does a great job as Lindsey’s mother, the only woman to get Raptured into heaven then sent back. (The movie doesn’t say why, but it heavily implies that she was sent back because she was being nagging and critical of how Heaven was run). As a result, she spends most of her time crying and saying “Why, why, WHY?”

And Rob Corddry is excellent as always as Ben’s dad, a man who literally made a deal with the devil. He’s a terrible parent, but in a funny way, and brings real energy to a movie that needs it very badly.

Plus, there is one little detail they added to the Travails that I thought was funny and well done : foul mouthed crows. Crows that look at you in that crow was and say “Your face is like a pig’s asshole! Your mother eats shit! ” and so on.

And the best part is that they just nailed having the swearing come out in the style of a crow’s caw. If crows could talk, that’s what it would sound like.

Uh oh, ZZZ time. Will finish in the morning.

(—–)

Now where was I? Oh yes.

And the movie isn’t bad, per se. I can’t say I hated watching it. I think my problem is not that it’s a terrible movie, it’s that it could have been so much better if they had just put more effort into it.

Instead, they made a movie that feels like everyone sleepwalked through it except for people like Gasteyer and Corddry, whose roles were small but appreciated for their energy. Otherwise, it feels like everyone showed up and went through the motions, doing what they do, and then went home and didn’t think about it.

Plus, spoiler alert, in the end Jesus, God, and Satan all die (I know, that makes no sense) , and there is this clumsy and heavy handed “But what do we do now? “Live our lives, I guess. ” ending that feels like something an atheist forum would mutter in its sleep before turning over in bed.

All in all, the movie, like its protagonists, couldn’t bother to be particularly good or bad. That would take energy. Instead, it shambles along for a while, then it ends.

I can completely understand why, despite it have a lot of star power, I had never heard of this movie before I saw it pop up in my suggestions on Netflix. I can’t imagine it did very well in the box office. It certainly wasn’t promoted very well.

So no, I cannot recommend this movie at all. You could do worse, but you could do a whole lot better too. Go watch something that at least cares enough to really suck.

Or you could just kick back and watch Mister Show on DVD!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.