Rapture-Palooza

Chris Matheson's script focuses its energy on small, wickedly funny gags, half of which Robinson seems to have sputtered out as improv.

Always amusing, if never screamingly funny.

Silly enough for you? Did I mention that the immortal Ken Jeong of “The Hangover’’ plays God, who gets mighty pissed when hubby accidentally shoots Jesus out of the sky?

Rapture-Palooza has a promising setup and a cast with a good track record of bringing the funny, yet it never does live up to its potential.

An amusing premise yields few yuks.

If you’re going to commit to a blasphemous stoner comedy mocking the New Testament prophesy of the coming Rapture, you’d better go all in. Because halfway isn’t funny.

The film overflows with inspired comic ideas that fizzle and die in execution like a marathon fireworks display of nothing but duds.

An amusing film, if not terribly entertaining. Let's face it; this is a film for a very niche audience -- former evangelicals who have left faith altogether. First of all, you have to have been an end-times obsessed evangelical to understand all of the apocalyptic references. Second, this film would be way too offensive to any current evangelical because of the language, alone. Ultimately, you have to keep reminding yourself of the absurdity of it all. Did I really believe all this **** was going to happen when I was an evangelical? Did I really believe that all of the "unsaved" would just go about their daily lives for seven years, waiting for the world to end? What works best about this film is that it is a satire of Christian apocalyticism that works by playing it straight. If, during your Christian life you watched films like "A Thief in the Night" and "Left Behind," then this is a good film to help you put all of that nonsense into perspective.

The rapture finally happen but Anna Kendrick, her boyfriend and her family didnt get sent to heaven. Talking locusts,walking Wraith making them like pothead zombies and the occasional meteor shower are the few that plague Earth but its livable. The Beast A.K.A the Antichrist played by Craig Robinson wants to marry and basically sleep with Anna Kendrick. He gave her a choice to marry him or kill everyone she knows so she and her boyfriend came up with a plan. A decent satire about the rapture with sarcastic humor by Anna Kendrick and Craig Robinson raunchy humor. A good cast and cameos, it could of been better but the movie did have moments especially with Craig Robinson and Anna Kendrick together. Rapture-Palooza comedic approach towards the rapture and religion work with some success.

I liked the cast in this film but the movie is just not as funny as it could be. It has its moments but most of them are shown in the trailer. It felt like the film had some promise and potential but due to a weak script that a whole cast of proven funny-makers can't make shine, the film doesn't live up to the the promise it had.

A solid cast and a promising, funny opening 20 or so minutes are all but squandered as soon as Craig Robinson's Anit-Christ officially makes his entrance into the film. It's not necessarily his fault, his foul-mouthed, man-child of a character is just severely underwritten, barely qualifying as a character and more a machine that spits out the same three lines ad nauseum, with only slight alterations to their structure. If he was a minor character, not a big deal, but Rapture-Palooza instantly becomes entirely about him the moment he steps on the scene. Craig Robinson deserves better material. Then again, no character in the film is particularly well-written (another victim of poor-writing is Ana Gasteyer, forced to screech and cry her way through some seriously unamusing scenes), but there are a few standout performers who elevate their one-note personas above their thankless characterizations. Rob Huebel, Thomas Lennon, Ken Jeong, and Paul Scheer are the only reasons to bother watching the second half of the film, as seemingly every funny thing the writer (Chris Matheson) could think of is frontloaded in the first twenty minutes. Paul Middleditch, the director, might deserve more of the blame though. His lack of experience with comedy and obvious over-reliance on his performers may be what truly undermined a decent script. In any case, a much better, similarly themed recent film to watch would be Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. If you need to watch Rapture-Palooza I would suggest only watching it if you're incredibly stoned, but it's instantly forgettable either way.

This looks like something a bunch of friends might film for gags in the backyard around the pool. The problem is that hitting people in the head with a shovel isn't really that funny even if you are that stoned. An interesting idea, this flakey film goes no place and wastes some talented people like Anne Kendrick. I'm wondering if she lost a bet and had to make this movie or if someone she knew was being held hostage.