Waiting for Armageddon

The recent trend in political documentaries is for filmmakers to heap ridicule and sarcasm on people they don't agree with, a la Michael Moore. Waiting for Armageddon (which has nothing to do with the 1998 Michael Bay movie) demonstrates that sometimes it's far more devastating to simply point the camera at your subjects and let them talk.

Davis and company do get at the odd mix of middle-class lifestyle and cheerful doom-saying that defines the mainstream apocalypticons.

The documentary's open-endedness offers something for everyone.

Respectfully and without dramatization (the ideas are electric enough), the directors observe a cross section of articulate evangelicals and accompany a Christian group on a revealing trip to Israel.

Line up this terrific documentary about end-times evangelical Christians against Bill Maher's sneering "Religulous," and you'll see an excellent argument for restraint and a fair fight.

This documentary about the evangelical belief in biblical prophecy is both overly ambitious and skimpy.

The film spends too much time following a Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land, limiting most of the substantive material to the last act.