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Viewing the
screener DVD for director Johnny K. Wu’s science fiction actioner, it’s
pretty clear that the movie is a real work of love. Wu is all about
action flicks and making the best out of very little and “The Rapture”
is a movie that’s granted care and style from Wu who goes so far to
include a “Silence” warning you find in theaters, and a featurette on
the DVD. “The Rapture” is no small accomplishment; it’s a sleek and
really good take on a pretty old formula with some of the best special
effects I’ve seen in an indie film. The man’s work here can not be
dismissed as he goes through painstaking work to feature some incredible
aesthetics like wings, and force fields. I was first introduced to Wu
through his awfully good fan film “A Joker’s Card” and he implements
much of the same martial arts in to his original film.
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"The
Rapture" tells the story of two brothers bio-engineered to
be super humans by the government. When their “mother” grows
to love them, she seeks to free them from living as weapons,
but the duo codenamed “Chimaera” follow different paths in
life and now the good one known as Midael, granted the power
of invincible angel wings must stop his brother Job from
committing further murders with his spear like tail and
force fields. |
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With
“The Rapture” there is plenty of back story, what with the
government experiments and the presence of superheroes and super
villains using Chimaera as a recruiting tool, and Wu uses this time
to provide some unique devices including some great flashbacks and
comic book stills that keep “The Rapture” slightly pressed in the
grindhouse arena. “The Rapture” is nothing if not layered and keeps
the story moving at an even pace with some good performances by the
principle cast who convincingly keep these powers as an asset in
their fight against criminals and government agents. Wu’s direction
is keen and stunning with most of the choreography near seamless
meshing with the special effects near perfection.
There’s too much
time (I repeat: way too much time) spent explaining the
characters, story, and overall premise. Some characters just sit down to
tell us all of what’s going on and explore the bigger back story instead
of letting us do some of the work and getting along with some plot
progression. It gets very tedious if you’re unwilling to wait for the
fighting. I kept wondering why Midael was exploring the deeper reasons
behind Job’s descent in to darkness rather than just going out and
looking for a way to solve their problems. Meanwhile, Wu seems to be
incapable of finding something for villain Job to do, so instead we just
watch him wandering around and finding random people to terrorize with
this fading hope that it’s leading to something. There were also some
audio problems with some of the dialogue sounding canned and distant
suddenly switching to a more echoed voice that was more audible. It was
distracting.
In spite of inherent
flaws here and there, director Wu’s “The Rapture” is a real
accomplishment with great special effects, an interesting story, and
some really good eye catching direction. Keep an open mind and you’ll
really enjoy what type of story he has to offer for audiences.
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