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. “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. “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. “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. 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. 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. 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 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.