Assassin 33 A.D.
It's been a while since I've seen something so audacious and terrible. Thank god I had some friends to share in the pain; the resulting commentary was one of few upsides that came with the screening.
Overall the narrative is a convoluted mess. Time travel itself and its properties in the story world are integral to the film's narrative. Of course one would expect it to be front and center but it is used for everything. New rules and facets are constantly brought to light through chunky exposition. There is layer after layer of mixed timelines and alternate selves. Even when a plan goes awry, there will shortly be another that doesn't, no matter the slim chances. There are stakes but they don't feel like they matter. Everything works out in the end, no loose strings, and Jesus gets a bullet to the dome.
The characters, my god the characters. First and foremost, this cast makes a Hallmark feature monologue look Oscar worthy. They try and make the "geniuses" smart, hip, and cool. What they end up with is a bunch of bad jokes, IQ draining arguments about theology, and accidental acts of heroism. It's almost hard...almost...to take offense to all the stereotypes and clear disdain towards Muslims. They do at least make it clear that the one dimensional villain is part of an extremist group fueled more so by revenge but they sure do drive home the point that the Christians got it right. I say almost because they are also throwing out some hot sacrilege against Catholics. I'm not a religious person but I grew up catholic so the crucifixion of Jesus is familiar territory. One thing I've come to enjoy about those passages is the suspense, especially when everybody loses it because the tomb is empty. While the bible paints the events in a sublime haze, this film paints them as pure spectacle. Jesus explodes out of the tomb in a Black Hawk Down-esque sequence. I won't get into it but they also shoe horn in a very long credits seen which serves to illuminate even more of the atrocious plot line. It is one of the strangest things I've seen occur on screen.
In terms of style, this doesn't have much more than a cheap LUT pack. Some of the VFX were okay and seeing people condense themselves into impalement kicked ass, but you can only polish shit so much. Also for a christian film, they sure did like to show off their C-List stars bodies. Most notably was Morgan Roberts' alien-like pelvis.
After things went truly black, I had a real bad taste in my mouth about this whole thing. I tried looking deeper into the production company, Timed Out Productions, but it seems this has been their only main project. The brazen insertion of the bible app in one of the protagonist's dying moments make me feel like they're behind much of the funding. I also wouldn't be surprised if a larger christian entity was also controlling much of its productions. But that's some unfounded stretching but it's hard for one's mind not to wander when seeing something so on the nose.
I could rant for a long time about the hot filth that was thrust upon my cornea's. In the end though, they did pull it all together. A decent sized crew put in a lot of time and hard work to create this final product. I'm sure a large chunk of the crew is only there for paycheck (can't hold that against 'em) and I do hope they will find more worthwhile projects in the future.
The biggest upside with a piece like this is the extra frame of reference it gives. There will always be films that don't hit their mark, poorly pace the narrative beats, and end fizzling out worse than a dime store firecracker. But you'll be able to take solace in the fact that it isn't as bad as Assassin 33 A.D.