The Apocalypse (2007)

Waste of time

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Excellent but underrated film

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

This movie is pretty bad but I have definitely seen worse and from more high profile director\actors too. In saying that, there is not much going for this - the acting is average to poor, the effects are at times OK and other times extremely poor, story line has been done before. The only point of difference in this plot is it tries to focus on the religious aspect of the disasters that are befalling the Earth and the faith of some of the characters, but it goes over the top in this area and fails in all other areas.Don't watch this if you are looking for a traditional disaster movie because this is not one in the sense of following the disaster - rather the disaster is the means it uses to try to deliver it's message about faith.Overall it gets 2 stars because I managed to watch it to the end and I have seen worse, three would have been too generous.

I may be confused, but this movie's special effects seem to have been by the same people as those for 2012 Doomsday and 2012 Supernova. They range from excellent, as when a road comes apart during an earthquake, pretty good, as a BIG tornado approaches, to the same sorts of weaknesses as in the other two movies: ashes that fall without leaving a trace on anything, heavy rain that falls without getting anything wet, bright sunlight during driving rain (with audible but invisible hail), bright sunlight as a tornado strikes. Also, some of the seen-from-a distance disaster scenes are strangely familiar … not so much stock footage as recycled footage. The incoming asteroid being as large as Texas was also familiar. Maybe I'll use that too if I ever get sufficient funding to make "Inconsiderate Fatheads From Outer Space". The misrepresentations of what the Bible teaches aren't as startling as in 2012 Doomsday, with its link between Mayan religion and Christianity, but people being Raptured at intervals instead of all at once is … original, to put things gently! For that matter, so is auto drivers considerately bringing their cars to a halt before being Raptured, and their not leaving their clothing behind. The acting? I'm tolerant of weak acting as long as the story moves along, which mostly it did. I mention acting last of all, because one doesn't watch this kind of movie for its acting. Would I watch this movie again? Probably not. Did I get my money's worth? Yes: I bought this as part of a DISASTER! 6 MOVIE PACK from a supermarket's reduced- price barrel, each disc of which netted out to costing a little under a dollar. Well worth every penny!

As the film began, I realized I'd have some trouble watching it. The sound quality is excessively poor, as often the background sounds overwhelmed what the actors were saying. At other times, the sound was too loud and made the film seem rather amateurish. At other times, the music completely dominated the film. I would have to say that the sound, in fact, was among the worst on any film in recent memory. To make things worse, there were no closed captions nor captions on the DVD. As I am very slightly hard of hearing, sticking with the film was a chore. So how was the rest of the film? Well, if you look at it as a strictly amateur production, it's not completely terrible...but this is not a ringing endorsement. The acting is fair and the action is fair (at best). The film is about the end of the world and the plot is rather reminiscent of Armageddon, as a giant asteroid is coming to destroy the plant. However, unlike this other film, there is no hope of diverting or destroying the Texas-sized rock. And, in the meantime, smaller chunks of rock come hurtling into the Earth as people contemplate their demise. Some turn to religion and others just whine about unfair everything is and some just kill themselves. It's all pretty unpleasant, that's for sure! However, I read some say that this film has a strong Christian message but the action in the film bears little relation to the accounts in the Bible. It's just unpleasantness--with mostly poor special effects, acting and sound. Not a feel-good film, that's for sure! In fact, I'm not sure why anyone would want to see this--but I can't see putting it in the Bottom 100 on IMDb. It doesn't quite reach the depths of awfulness such a ranking would imply.

I fancy myself as something of a bad movie connoisseur. Usually, I actually like bad movies - the wooden acting, meandering plot, horrible directing and illogical editing, when combined in the proper proportions, can make for a truly entertaining spectacle, a comedy where no humor was intended. When watched with the proper attitude, some of the worst films ever made can also be some of the best. (Caveat: Bad comedies are always bad.) This is especially true of science fiction and horror, where the prodigious suspension of disbelief we are asked to adopt means the movie has a long way to fall if that suspension should fail. So I was excited to find this science fiction disaster movie, aptly entitled The Apocalypse, gracing the IMDb Bottom 100 list. I acquired it and settled in for a good time.As I said, I am a connoisseur. I have seen some truly horrible films. Sasquatch Mountain has some of the most bizarre directing decisions I think I've ever seen. The Beast of Yucca Flats has some very memorably bad lines (Flag on the moon, anyone?). The plot of The Wild World of Batwoman hinges on an "atomic powered hearing aid." The soundtrack of Dead Men Walking is composed entirely of thrash metal. The film quality of Oasis of the Zombies is slightly outdone by the Zapruder footage. And who can forget the set design of Plan 9 From Outer Space? And all these movies are great. I mean, they're bad, really bad, but they're hilarious. So I was surprised when I found that I was actually having trouble enjoying The Apocalypse. Could there be some films so bad that they transcend good-badness? Now don't get me wrong - there are elements of this film that are hilarious, and scenes that had me laughing out loud. The first five minutes of the film, in which some stereotypical college-aged kids sit around a campfire overacting their incredibly generic lines before getting killed by a bunch of extremely well-aimed meteors is one such scene. The first death of the film involves a guy getting hit in the chest by a meteor while taking a leak in the dark woods. One of the kids at the campfire then startles and says "What was that?" to the skeptical dismissals of her friends. If one had replaced the meteor with bigfoot, the dialogue and tone could have been identical. Classic.I laughed at another ridiculous scene involving a crazy gun-toting banker who gibbers madly while waving his gun around and repeatedly growling "Liars!" The intended intensity and suspense of this scene fall flat when the other actors in the scene fail to appear more than mildly surprised at the banker's actions, and the poor sound quality reduces anything he says to random croaking and weeping noises, so his terrible performance as a regular man who's lost hope ends up looking like an excellent performance as a strung out crackhead.A series of scenes takes place in a pile of rubble after a tornado. As the characters try to make poignant comments about the hopelessness of their situation, and talk about how alone they are, and how desolate and quiet everything is, one can clearly hear several airplanes and helicopters passing overhead, as the scenes are clearly filmed near a large population center, and possibly an airport. This is especially comical during one scene at this location when a character waves to a single passing helicopter whose audio has unnecessarily been edited into the soundtrack.Apart from these few scenes, and the humorously inappropriate musical score (which ranges from Dvorak to 16-bit midi - all royalty-free, as indicated in the credits) there's actually not much to enjoy in this movie. It's not that the dialogue isn't bad. It's not that the acting isn't laughable. It's not that the direction doesn't leave you scratching your head at times. It's not that the special effects aren't as obvious as a gunshot wound. It's that all of this is there, and then some. This movie is actually TOO bad for its own good.The problem stems from the fact that much of the badness of this film isn't derived from these usual sources. They're all there, to be sure. But this movie is boring. Scenes stretch on for uncomfortable periods, while the actors struggle to hold some distressed facial expression, saying nothing. Characters look out of car windows at things we never get to see, still saying nothing. When there is dialogue, it's terrible - but somehow, unnecessary. Many conversations are superfluous rehashes of previous conversations, which, in movie time, took place a few days ago, but in real time, we sat through just five minutes earlier.There are some great bad movies out there. The conventional reasons that movies are usually bad make them wonders of comedy. The badness can be forgiven. But The Apcoalypse commits one sin of badness that is inexcusable - it's just not interesting.