Neddy Merrill
With a mediocre title like "Rapture-Palooza" the film cannot be accused of false advertising. With the exception of Anna Kendrick, the cast is peopled with comedic actors of "There's-That-Guy-From- That-Thing"-level renown which is about the right level for the material. You get the gist from the title that the plot amounts to it's the end of days and hilarity ensues. Although some of the proceedings are decidedly not funny including John Michael Higgins being crushed by a falling meteorite as the family looks on, drug- addicts pestering survivors for a hit as they leave their house and the deity of about a billion true-believers being burned to death with a laser as he rides a unicorn. Craig Robinson plays the Antichrist borrowing lines and an outrageous skeeviness from dozens of stand-up comedy routines over the last 30 years. Counter- intuitively his recycled slease-oid is by default the most fully realized character among those not played by Kendrick. Rob Coddry, Ken Jeong, John Francis Daly and others in the cast could have rotated around their interchangeable characters during the filming with little loss of coherence. In particular, Daly could have been replaced with a sock puppet on Kendrick's left hand and it would have played very similarly. As the movie meanders towards its anti- religious? ending, Kendrick inc increasingly comes to dominate the screen-time and brings an earnestness that keeps the movie at least watchable if not entertaining. In short, many better apocalypse films exist - watch one of those.
Shopaholic35
I am not even sure what to think with this movie. It actually is very funny and entertaining even though it has no real point. It's a very clever take on the whole apocalypse idea and revels in it's own stupidity and sarcastic humour. The comedy style is so incredibly obvious and it doesn't pretend to be something it's not. I think that's why it works. The actors know they have made something completely ridiculous but it is a form of art that they are all willing participants of. So I'm OK with the ludicrousness of it all and enjoyed the darkness of it. There are a couple of uncomfortable moments in the movie that are awkward and unnecessary but thankfully they are few and far between.Overall Rapture-Palooza was a pretty good movie and was much better than I expected.
BA_Harrison
Just like the predicted Rapture of 2012 (as prophesied by Ronald Weinland of the apocalypticist COG-PKG), end of the world comedy Rapture Palooza proves to be something of a non-event.Despite a potentially very funny premise, and a promising start (the slo-mo credits sequence is surprisingly stylish), the film is extremely hit and miss, with the majority of gags being misses. Much of the humour relies on smut and profanity, which I have no problem with, but when I fail to find a vagina joke funny, we definitely have a problem!To make matters worse, the whole production has an air of cheapness about it, particularly the special effects scenes which look like someone knocked them out quickly in After Effects on their iMac (I suspect this may not be far from the truth).Overall, this is very much like that other terrible rapture themed comedy of 2013, This Is The End, only none of its stars are anywhere near as obnoxious as Seth Rogen.3/10, plus an extra point for getting Anna Kendrick into that white dress (which distracted me slightly from the dire comedy).
Chris Nguyen
The rapture finally happen but Anna Kendrick, her boyfriend and her family didn't 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.
AD
