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THE MARK – The DVD Review – We Are Movie Geeks

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THE MARK – The DVD Review

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By Anna Weaver

The ultimate fight for good and evil begins…

THE MARK is one of the latest movies from Pure Flix Entertainment.  Craig Scheffer stars as Chad Turner, a former soldier whose faith in humanity is seriously in doubt from fighting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Chad’s brother, the epitome of “faith through all things”, tells him to stay strong, God has a plan and to look for the signs, good and bad.

As an adrenaline junkie, I was excited to see this movie. The storyline sounded like a re-write of AIRFORCE ONE from a Christian perspective. My understanding is that faith-based movies are designed promote a more intimate relationship with God and that our faith shouldn’t be reserved just for Sundays, it’s to be lived out every day. That being said, from the beginning I was left with more questions than answers. After watching this movie, I didn’t know what to believe. My family actually “googled” the word “rapture” and began a discussion on what it meant. If that’s what the writers wanted, then stamp it “mission accomplished”.  If it’s entertainment they were after, then the tape, or in this case DVD, will more than likely self-destruct.

The movie opens with bursts of information to give the viewer a quick synopsis that the world is basically going to hell in a hand basket. It doesn’t get much better after that. The characters have very little chemistry so you don’t feel good/bad/indifferent when something happens to them. You barely catch “The Rapture” as it’s a simple flash of light and no one on board, except the conveniently placed minister, knows what happened. The message was lost in translation and the storyline felt rushed just to promote a sequel. It was like trying to feed green peas to a toddler. You know it’s good but you almost have to shovel it down quickly before it ricochets. The writers needed to slow it down and add a little salt so we actually want another helping.

Let me also say, Eric Roberts should be ashamed. I’ve seen better acting from Marc Singer in BEAST MASTER. It had to be the writing or quite possibly the extremely low budget editing. Nothing in this film made me say, “Wow, that’s entertainment!” Honestly, this movie was so poorly shot that it made sitting through the trailer for the sequel almost painful.

In the end, Chad Turner, is no Jack Ryan but Craig Scheffer is no Harrison Ford. Next time leave the End of Days stuff to LaHaye and his buddy Kirk Cameron and put a call in to Andrew Marlowe for writing tips on action and adventure.

2 out of 5 stars