movie review by efrain gomez
On one hand, it’s sort of cool seeing a modern movie deal in archetypal good and evil. It takes events straight out of the Hebrew scriptures (see the Book of Exodus), the ten plagues upon Egypt to be exact, and brings them center stage as the catalyst for this supernatural thriller about God’s holy avengers versus a Satanic cult attempting to breed an antichrist baby. Plus, there are plenty of freaky images and moments to make your heart gasp.
On the other hand, I wish I could begin and end this review with, “‘The Reaping’ sucked. Next.” But alas, I must fill up the rest of this space with hopefully coherent thoughts dipped in movie-geekness.
Hilary Swank (“Million Dollar Baby”) plays a former Christian missionary who, after a vaguely tragic loss, becomes an atheistic, expert miracle debunker. The action begins when she, along with her trusty church-going sidekick (Idris Elba of “The Gospel”), is called to a small Louisiana town where she must investigate and confront mysterious phenomena that can’t easily be explained by good ol’ fashioned science.
Don’t be fooled though, “The Reaping” is basically a stale retelling of “Rosemary’s Baby”. It’s kind of blasphemic to compare these two movies, seeing as how “Rosemary” is a better movie, but they definitely share plot elements, including an atmospheric creepiness that chills the room and ends with a bummer. “The Reaping” takes itself way too seriously, especially for the religious exploitation and a lot of the lame explanatory dialogue: “You! You deceived me so I would murder this child!?”
A flustered priest offers weak explanations at convenient bumps in the story which reminded me of another high concept crap of a Bible-inspired movie, “End of Days”, starring California’s favorite governor. I hate explanations from religious experts in movies. Most of the time they are corny, contradictory, convoluted, and treat the audience like Sunday school kids on the short bus.
While it entertains with its fire and brimstone visuals, “The Reaping” is a schlocky thriller lacking anything truly fresh. Instead of having deep questions about faith and religion, you might want to ask, “Wait, what the bleep just happened?” and “I wasted how much money?”, or “God, why does my bio photo have to look so dorky?”
Some questions just don’t have answers.
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RATING: 1.5 stars out of 4
Way better alternatives
magnolia (1999) - a somewhat unrelated film referencing one of the Ten Plagues of Egypt
Signs (2002) - not necessarily related, but it’s a movie about faith and is a billion times better than The Reaping
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) - a movie about a cult trying to usher in the birth of the spawn of Satan on Earth. this movie is freaky and slightly evil, but is far superior to Hilary Swank’s bad choice
contradictory, convoluted is the way swank’s character describes the priest’s explanation in the movie when she’s talking to him on the phone. this movie sucked horrible acting it was a total joke i’d shove this dvd in my pee hole before i put it back in my dvd player.