Movie Review: The Remaining (2014)

Synopsis: On the day of Dan and Skyler's wedding, millions around the world suddenly drop dead without warning and a series of other Biblical events point to the Rapture. Taking refuge in a church the newlyweds and their friends are forced to examine their life's choices and their faith in God.

Who's in it? The movie stars Johnny Pacar, Shaun Sipos, Alexa PenaVega, Bryan Dechart and Italia Ricci.


Review: I came across this film on one of my movie channels this evening and since my wife and I were about to sit down and have some dinner, decided to watch it. It ended up being an OK choice but did leave me wanting more.

The main problem with movies like this in general is they are advertised as horror films but tend to feel a bit too much like a recruitment commercial for the Christian Church instead. This movie was no exception.

I think the movie had potential to be memorable had it spend a bit more time focusing on the Rapture itself. However, other than brief glimpses of the bad things they were facing, earthquakes, killer hail, lightning and unseen monsters, the focus became more on the friends and their personal journeys. I probably could have been OK with the latter had the revelations been even remotely interesting but other than one confession of cheating, it was mostly just not being faithful enough.

I also felt like the movie went through a whole lot of effort to create conflict between best friends Tommy (Pacar) and Jack (Sipos) over their shared feelings of love for Allison (Ricci) only to have that not really amount to anything. Plus, I'm still a bit confused why the film even bothered adding another character, Sam (Liz E. Morgan), and not really tell us anything about who she is or her backstory.

What this film desperately needed was some sort of twist. I fully expected Sam to be some sort of angel or even God but that wasn't the case. I also told my wife this would have been a completely different and possibly better movie had the "Rapture" actually been something else, like an alien invasion (as suggested by one of the characters on multiple occasions). As just another Rapture movie, there's really nothing special about it.

Final Opinion: I thought the individual actor performances helped the movie a bit but if you've seen any other movie about the Rapture, there's nothing in this film that will be surprising.

My Grade: C-

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