Countdown Armageddon

Moviecut—Countdown: Jerusalem

I would ignore marbleann's review for this movie as they don't seem to "get it" and used the review function to bash "right wing Christians". As a Christian myself, I see many inaccuracies in the movie as well as an incorrect focus. The movie focuses on a reporter trying to find her daughter (whom apparently has been raptured). Instead of focusing on the mom being saved and how believers will struggle with persecution in the end times, this movie just meanders around, not making a lot of sense most of the time. I couldn't tell who those "watchers" were really supposed to be? It's like they tried to cram a spy movie inside of a Christian movie and the whole thing was a hot mess. The Tribulation they showed just an earthquake and a few other things and treated it as a "minor side-plot" that really had no effect on the main character who focused her time on running around going "where's my baby" for 99% of the movie. Boring and pointless.

Come there is a war going on. And all we are supposed it care about is some reporter trying to find her daughter. Come on. Worst movie do come to mind such has The Godfather. The Godfather part II and The Godfather part III. But is came pretty dame close to being has bad.

Undoubtedly the worst film that The Asylum have ever been connected with, COUNTDOWN: ARMAGEDDON is a faith-based end-of-the-world disaster flick in which the world is being gradually destroyed by a series of natural disasters. Into this mayhem comes a woman searching for her missing daughter, aided by a man who might or might not be an angel. This was made by Faith Films, and unsurprisingly turns out to be concentrated on delivering a pro Christian message. It's thus worthy and dull, lacking even the usual CGI assisted mayhem of this genre, and quite without merit.

It is an Asylum film. With Nazis at the center of the earth and Sharknado I know I should not expect a good movie. Funny, brainless films are the seal of this company. This one is horrible even by those standards (none). I had no moment of entertainment: The dialog is bad, the screenplay is bad, the deus-ex-machina (machinas? machinus? machini?) are bad, the acting was kinda trying, the audio was so overly imposed that you could barely hear the dialog, the plot is astoundingly incomprehensible... Only one or two scenes are kinda redeemable and both of them are completely inconsequential. This movie even have a 35 minute sequence that adds absolutely nothing. When almost a third of your movie can be skipped with you losing nothing you know you have a bad movie. Say yes to drugs if you want to watch this movie. Yes to all the drugs.

I rented Countdown: Jerusalem as a fun-bad movie. Maybe I would get some totally ridiculous machines or things that kill or some wretched dialog and performances to mock, like the Day the Earth Stopped (also released by Asylum video). But no, this shouldn't be confused with a 'pedigree' piece of s*** like a C. Thomas Howell movie. No, as I should've known better, this is from Faith Films, and the feature debut of A.F. Silver (nay another film on his IMDb resume - dare I ask what the follow-up is?), and it has nothing of value for bad-movie fans. Nothing. There's barely a laugh to be had, except maybe for the dialog exchange from Kim Little's Alison: "The phone lines are down. Mark called." All you need to know (or all I really knew watching) is this: woman's daughter is taken by husband to Jerusalem, and she spends the movie looking for her. That's it. Oh, and there's a bunch of fuzzy scenes of "Peace in the Middle East" being broken down by earthquakes and, um, no peace in the Middle East. It's not even a movie that has enough guts to really go down its kooky plan. It's another lump of cinematic mediocrity where you almost can't hate it (almost the key word) since it's a transparent production. The acting is of the worst popular tripe, its methods are sloppy and its conclusions highly questionable (like, um, the world ends and the daughter is found? this isn't a spoiler per-say, I'm still trying to figure out what happens). When a movie is so bad it becomes mock-proof, you might as well torch it and leave the metal scraps for the garbage disposal. Oh, and did I mention Alison's looking for her daughter? YOU NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT!!

Had I not read the trivia and reviews here, I would have not known this was a religious movie. Or supposed to be... I would have thought it was just a failed action movie with a muddled plot. No actual religious points of view, so it wasn't preachy...just vague. I taught Sunday school and still had no idea what the ending meant. Even Kirk Cameron would have been confused.

I approached this movie "cold" not knowing anything at all about it but just browsing one evening on Netflix. Previous reviewers have skewered it. What troubled me and unmentioned by others is that it came across as anti Israel or at least patronizing toward Israel. As a non-deist (athiest) I have my own reservations about deist states be they Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran or would-be Christian fundamentalist USA. But whether or not you like it, Israel exists and is there to stay. The scenes of Israel/ Jerusalem being rocketed, bombed and shot up by some coalition of a New World Order were too much for my taste. I sensed that those scenes would appeal egoistically to Israel-haters. On the plus side the lady protagonist was nice eye candy from the side and rear. And some of the Israel-cinematography was appealing and interesting.

Simple and straightforward: The end just fell flat. Now, if they had built the plot so that we cared about the main character, that would be fine. But, the filmmakers' inability to build suspense is what completely drowned the whole thing. In her attempt to find her daughter, the main character relies on the help of a variety of people in the U.S. and Israel. None of the actors were at all engaging, and the only one who actually seemed to be able to portray true emotion was the hotel clerk. He may have been my favorite character. The appearance of all the other characters seemed more random than mysterious. There have been other comments regarding the inaccuracy of how Israel was portrayed in this film. If the settings and the people of the Middle East were maligned by the filmmakers, then that's an even greater shame upon this cinematic waste of time. You're better off watching re-runs of your favorite TV show that you've seen ten times already than waste your time on this film.

This is not a Pro Israel movie. Nor is it a action thriller. This movie is a right wing crazy Christian movie. And I want to quantify this by saying I am not talking about your everyday Christian. I am talking about the ones who believes the world is going to end 2 years ago or 4 years ago or 10 years from now.. See they believe Armageddon is going to happen in the area which is now Israel. That is why they seem so sympathetic to Israel, but not really. You see that come out in the movie. Is the movie about the condemnation of violence in Israel? Or are they just worried about those temples? Even in the beginning of the movie while the main character is making a report we are focused on this Temple which is crumbling. Surly a metaphor. You hardly knew it was a earthquake if they did not tell you. So they are focusing on the Temples, where Jewish people worship. She goes to Israel and the same thing. The US is kind of mealy mouthed about defending Israel which is odd. So this is the premise of the movie in a sneaky way. Because the Crazy Christians believe that the end of the world is going to happen in that area they want to make sure all of the Jewish people are gone and the ones that are left have accepted Christ. It is all through the movie. Even on the airplane. The ex sends some guy named Joseph that looks like St Joseph to watch over his ex wife. We are in Israel and we see no Hebrews worshiping we just see Christians Jewish people. I just thought the whole movie was a mess. The child was never kidnapped she was raptured. That is why she disappeared in clear air. And she ends up in Israel looking for her. Then they try to make it look like it might be about some type of spy movie because of the husbands job. I looked at the movie thinking it was one of those so bad they are good movies syfy puts out all of the time. Instead I get a bible lesson from some Crazy Christians.