Plot Summary
After the Rapture, the inevitable one world government materialized and began rounding up the Christians when they wouldn’t take the mark of the beast. Thus, Christians began to form groups in secret to protect each other from the new one world order. Former FBI agent Adam Riley, now a resistor, escapes from captivity and sets out to find the truth about the Christians in hiding. His former partner Charles Baker is also called back to serve the one world order and to search for the elusive Jacob Krause. As their paths cross once again, choices will be made that will affect them forever.
Production Quality (1.5 points)
The Awakening is a slight improvement from the first Moment After installment. Camera work is the most marked improvement, as action scenes are shot better. Sets and locations are also improved to give the film a bit more of a realistic feel. Audio quality is fine, but video quality is slightly inconsistent. Some scenes are not lit as well as others. The soundtrack is just average. However, the editing has its positive elements as the story seems to unfold. In the end, this is an average production, but something is still missing.
Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)
The Awakening has strong comparisons to Revelation Road and could be considered its predecessor. As such, there are some intriguing elements in The Awakening, but it’s still not a very dynamic story. Slightly more effort was put into the complexity of this installment than in the first one, and there is an interesting twist near the end, but there isn’t really much else good to say here. The characters are still empty and the plot is filled with too many boring and meandering conversations. The villains are quite cheesy and the apocalyptic elements are, as usual, manufactured. Also, this film is inevitably continued into nothing, like many apocalyptic efforts after it, thus making the overall story very empty and pointless.
Acting Quality (1 point)
This acting performance is much the same as the first installment, just with an extra dose of Andrea Logan White in all her usual stiffness. David A. R. White and Kevin Downes are also their usual selves with random outbursts and fake action-guy demeanors. Brad Heller surprisingly remains sane throughout the film. Overall, this is just another below-average performance.
Conclusion
Why start a series you never intend to finish? This incident was not isolated to The Moment After series; the Whites and company repeated this again with Jerusalem Countdown, In the Blink of an Eye, and possibly The Mark series as well. The fate of Revelation Road is still unknown, but the bottom line is that if you keep starting and never finishing the same apocalyptic plots over and over again, there’s a problem. Rather than constantly flooding the market with half-ideas, how about finishing what you start and actually delivering something original for a change?
Final Rating: 3 out of 10 points
Box Office Revolution 