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I watched The Remaining a month or so ago. I know you guys talked about it back when it was first getting publicity, but I never saw any reviews of it on here. It's a faith-based film about the Rapture and the beginning of the End Times. Unlike Left Behind, it's actually presented as a horror movie.
It's not great. It didn't look like a theatrical film. The CG was decent (better than Sharknado, for instance), and they were very conservative with it (unlike in Sharknado, for instance), but the camera style (or whatever you call it) looked cheaper than something that would be in a theater.
The acting was fine. I watched a bit of the behind the scenes stuff, and the actors all spent a lot of time together filming stock footage for the opening - hanging out, playing on the beach, goofing off, and other things that young groups of friends do together. It made their relationships believable on the screen, if nothing else. There was only one actress in the whole thing whom I recognized: Alexa PenaVega (nee Vega). I only know her from Repo: The Genetic Opera, though, which isn't one I would recommend.
Honestly, the filmmaking specs are tertiary to me. If it weren't for the next two problems, I'd probably actually recommend the film.
My second biggest qualm is with the adaptation of Revelation. After the Rapture happens, a few of the plagues detailed in Revelation happen, but not all of them, and not in the right order. Of the seven seals opened in Revelation 6 and 8, only one of them is shown to happen in the film: the great earthquake. Instead, they focus on the seven trumpets, but only a couple are heard. We get the massive hail and some fire, but I don't recall there being any water turned to blood (second trumpet) or wormwood (third trumpet).
They seem to skip from the first trumpet to the fifth when the "locusts" appear. They never show the "locusts" clearly, which is probably wise considering their budget, but the graphic novel adaptation (which I've read) depicts them as flying phantoms with zombie heads or something. They look like a death metal album cover, but not like Revelation describes them. And in the film, they only attack and kill people who are exercising faith. In Revelation, they're specifically send to torment anyone who isn't being faithful to God and doesn't have the seal of God on their forehead. Also, the Bible says they're not allowed to kill anyone.
But even all that is only secondary to my biggest issue: they never present the Gospel. A little bit of the Bible is read when one character looks up Revelation, but the name of Jesus is never even muttered. I don't think they even say anything about sin or the fall. It's just a bunch of generic "believe in God" and "live for God" talk. They never say what that means.
So as ambitious as the film is, I can't recommend the final product.
It's not great. It didn't look like a theatrical film. The CG was decent (better than Sharknado, for instance), and they were very conservative with it (unlike in Sharknado, for instance), but the camera style (or whatever you call it) looked cheaper than something that would be in a theater.
The acting was fine. I watched a bit of the behind the scenes stuff, and the actors all spent a lot of time together filming stock footage for the opening - hanging out, playing on the beach, goofing off, and other things that young groups of friends do together. It made their relationships believable on the screen, if nothing else. There was only one actress in the whole thing whom I recognized: Alexa PenaVega (nee Vega). I only know her from Repo: The Genetic Opera, though, which isn't one I would recommend.
Honestly, the filmmaking specs are tertiary to me. If it weren't for the next two problems, I'd probably actually recommend the film.
My second biggest qualm is with the adaptation of Revelation. After the Rapture happens, a few of the plagues detailed in Revelation happen, but not all of them, and not in the right order. Of the seven seals opened in Revelation 6 and 8, only one of them is shown to happen in the film: the great earthquake. Instead, they focus on the seven trumpets, but only a couple are heard. We get the massive hail and some fire, but I don't recall there being any water turned to blood (second trumpet) or wormwood (third trumpet).
They seem to skip from the first trumpet to the fifth when the "locusts" appear. They never show the "locusts" clearly, which is probably wise considering their budget, but the graphic novel adaptation (which I've read) depicts them as flying phantoms with zombie heads or something. They look like a death metal album cover, but not like Revelation describes them. And in the film, they only attack and kill people who are exercising faith. In Revelation, they're specifically send to torment anyone who isn't being faithful to God and doesn't have the seal of God on their forehead. Also, the Bible says they're not allowed to kill anyone.
But even all that is only secondary to my biggest issue: they never present the Gospel. A little bit of the Bible is read when one character looks up Revelation, but the name of Jesus is never even muttered. I don't think they even say anything about sin or the fall. It's just a bunch of generic "believe in God" and "live for God" talk. They never say what that means.
So as ambitious as the film is, I can't recommend the final product.
