Plot Summary
After jumping out of that plane to save their lives, Chad and Dao find themselves on the run for their lives in Thailand as they try to remove the secret chip from Chad’s arm while being pursued by agents of an all-powerful rising world leader. The Rapture has occurred, leaving the world mired in chaos. As they try to grapple with the God of the Bible, Chad and Dao find themselves involved in multiple international conspiracies, including a human trafficking scheme that involves Dao’s sister and Chad’s former employers. As they fight for survival, who will prevail in this brave new world?
Production Quality (.5 point)
In keeping with the usual poor PureFlix production mode, clear video quality is all that can be found here that is remotely positive. Anything else related to camera work is dizzying and annoying. Much of the footage is recycled, both flashback footage and non-flashback footage, which demonstrates extreme laziness. Other scenes of the film are extremely long and drawn out, trying to delay the inevitable to build up some kind of fake suspense. Action sequences are over the top and poorly executed. The use of special effects and sound effects is very amateurish and obnoxious. For such a big plot, the sets and locations are quite limited and the surroundings are almost entirely confined to Thailand, PureFlix’s favorite international location. There is little to no editing—I’m convinced that the production team just went with what they had from filming. Basically, The Mark 2 is same song, different verse for PureFlix.
Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)
Picking up where The Mark left us hanging, The Mark 2 is the most slow to development suspense plot ever. Inevitable confrontations between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters are painfully dragged out over a ninety-minute runtime full of coincidences, convenient plot devices, information dump dialogue, stupid action scenes, and scenes of characters sitting around or pacing around and talking. There is basically no purpose to this plot as John Patus once again shoves his apocalyptic opinions down our throats in the most awkward fashion possible. Multiple scenes appear to be directly copied from the original Left Behind series, which is no surprise with Patus involved. Only this time, the antichrist character is borderline unbearable and sports the fakest European accent possible. In the middle of the film, a cheesy Christian message is shoehorned in, along with a random human trafficking subplot that tries to improve the runtime. The mark of the beast concept, though slightly interesting, is only toyed with in the film and never seems complete. In the end, as the characters tell us through narration what we’re supposed to learn, it is unclear whether or not the story is to continue—obviously not, since there’s no Mark 3, but what were they really expecting? Did they actually have any ideas beyond the Rapture? Basically, we learned nothing from this plot, thus making it completely useless.
Acting Quality (.5 point)
This typical C-grade PureFlix cast is complete with fake accents, lame attempts at diversity, racial stereotypes, and Eric Roberts. Multiple cast members appear to have no place in the film, opting to pace around and talk about important things. Other cast members appear to take themselves too seriously and try to be as serious as you can be in a PureFlix action plot. At least not all of the acting is bad, but across the board, line delivery and emotions are very poor. But what else is new?
Conclusion
Why are so many PureFlix action plots at least partially set in Thailand? Also, if we are to endure so many apocalyptic Christian films on the market, can’t we at least see one that doesn’t involve the alleged ‘Rapture’ in some fashion? Haven’t we seen that enough from the original Left Behind series, that horrible new Left Behind, the first Mark film, The Remaining, Jerusalem Countdown, In the Blink of an Eye, the Revelation Road series (with the exception of The Black Rider), Six: The Mark Unleashed, etc.? With the money spent on this film and every other wasted apocalyptic film, you would think that it could have been saved for a truly groundbreaking Christian action\adventure or suspense movie that would have made a difference in the culture. But instead, we are left with a littered collection of could-haves and cut-rate productions.
Final Rating: 1 out of 10 points
Box Office Revolution 