Review of Rapture-Palooza (2013) by Monosyllabical — 06 Jun 2013

A solid cast and a promising, funny opening 20 or so minutes are all but squandered as soon as Craig Robinson's Anit-Christ officially makes his entrance into the film. It's not necessarily his fault, his foul-mouthed, man-child of a character is just severely underwritten, barely qualifying as a character and more a machine that spits out the same three lines ad nauseum, with only slight alterations to their structure.

If he was a minor character, not a big deal, but Rapture-Palooza instantly becomes entirely about him the moment he steps on the scene. Craig Robinson deserves better material. Then again, no character in the film is particularly well-written (another victim of poor-writing is Ana Gasteyer, forced to screech and cry her way through some seriously unamusing scenes), but there are a few standout performers who elevate their one-note personas above their thankless characterizations.

Rob Huebel, Thomas Lennon, Ken Jeong, and Paul Scheer are the only reasons to bother watching the second half of the film, as seemingly every funny thing the writer (Chris Matheson) could think of is frontloaded in the first twenty minutes.

Paul Middleditch, the director, might deserve more of the blame though. His lack of experience with comedy and obvious over-reliance on his performers may be what truly undermined a decent script. In any case, a much better, similarly themed recent film to watch would be Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

If you need to watch Rapture-Palooza I would suggest only watching it if you're incredibly stoned, but it's instantly forgettable either way.