THE 3RD HALL OF INFAMY: Infamy Rises Again

Ouch, Keyser, why do you torture us so? Never mind. I guess that's kind of the point.

I jumped the gun and watched it already. Review is forthcoming...

Leap - 1 subcutaneous microchip out of 5

Imagine someone going into this movie hoping to learn more about PK...ahem, parkour while not realizing it is Christian propaganda in disguise: that person would feel pretty baited and switched, wouldn't they? But anyway, this is a laughably amateurish production. First, the acting: all I can think of to describe it is a quote from Apocalypse Now satire Porklips Now regarding Willard's opinion of whether Kurtz's method acting is unsound: "there was no acting at all." It's likely that the friends of everyone involved in this movie think they are cool for being in it; otherwise, they could easily use it to blackmail them, or in the very least, embarrass them at bachelor or bachelorette parties. As for what makes this a propaganda movie, it deserves the same jeers as other ones for employing their most insidious tropes. To make things worse, their target for indoctrination is not a bad or misguided person as they tend to be. Should he have done a background check on his girlfriend at some point? Probably, but he's still a happy person who has a fulfilling hobby and a healthy lifestyle. While he likely cannot help it because he is a big and tall guy, it is fitting that the youth pastor has such a deep voice because I consider him the villain of the piece. Now, let's address the tin foil hat-wearing elephant in the room: what is up with the debit card paranoia? The only good thing I can say about it, which stretches the definition of good, is that it makes the midichlorian scene in The Phantom Menace make more sense. On top of that, given the movie's message, it seems hypocritical for it to fear that kind of conformity while embracing another.

Did I enjoy anything about this movie? Yes, I did: for starters, I like the training and climbing montages, but perhaps not for the reasons the filmmaker intended. They gave my brain a rest, and like bathroom breaks during a dull seminar, they shortened the distance to the finish line. I'll also admit to enjoying the music. Other than that, this is an all-around poor and laughable production that will likely turn more away from its cause than make them sign up for it. Oh, I thought of one more good thing about it: someone in it does an even worse British accent than I do.

Did you jump the gun? Or did you grab onto some chain link around the gun like your life depended on it and slowly haul yourself over the gun in painful real time?

Actually, I did. Just gotta find the right grainy black and white filter and royalty-free hard rock song and I'll share the footage here.

I've seen Leap twice now. I wrote this in 2022 :

"I'm sure everyone can agree that every aspect of good filmmaking is lacking and kind of flagrantly disregarded here - to an extent where Leap hardly qualifies as a movie - but the sheer insanity which plagues the mind who guided the narrative will have most of those who watch Leap deeply troubled. Paranoia interpreted as righteousness will one day guide someone impatient for the end of times to take matters into their own hands - Shoko Asahara-style. Stop obsessing over Book of Revelation and just be kind to your fellow man."

Leap is simply a very bad attempt at making a movie. The shocking fact of the matter is, though, that Chris Tempel is still making Leap movies to this day (Leap : A Tale of the Last Days has a trailer playing on YouTube, it's slated for a "Spring 2024" release), as if this is all working out so well that he feels compelled to continue. The people we see in this film don't act - they simply remember their lines. The PK we see in the film isn't worthy of being in a movie - it's very basic stuff, and Tempel should acknowledge that many of us have seen that parkour chase in Casino Royale. The gold standard. His action scenes are ridiculous in comparison. Martin Campbell was making a nice, exciting and memorable movie. Tempel was messing about.

I don't know if I could call myself an atheist, but there's one thing I want to say to people who are fanatical about Christianity - atheists don't hate you. Atheists aren't planning your downfall. Atheists simply don't care - what you want to do is your own business, and what you want to believe is also your own business. Considering what Jewish people, Muslims, Buddhists and other religious denominations go through, Christians in English speaking territories are so lucky in that they avoid persecution. You can dream up all the atheist characters you like, pointing guns at you and demanding you to stop believing in God - but the more you do that, the sillier you look. It simply defies logic.

Believing that the end times are nigh has been a constant through recorded history, and today is no different - but however appreciative you are about movies that depict old Bible prophecies coming true, I can't imagine Leap bringing much joy. It's simply too daft, bumbling and amateurish. It lacks the professionalism needed to make a movie a real, bona-fide movie. Even the bible verse interpretations seem particularly lightweight and childishly basic. It bungles all of it's key moments. There are blunders everywhere. The music from Chris Tempel, cinematography from Chris Tempel, editing by Chris Tempel, visual effects by Chris Tempel, writing from Chris Tempel and direction from Chris Tempel are all incompetent and bumbling.

Amazingly, despite the fact that there are three producing credits, the IMDb tells me :



A truly obnoxious and awful attempt at whatever this was meant to be.

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I'm 15 minutes in and I've already used the Lord's name in vain approximately 10 times. Not sure if that means the movie is working or not.

I plan to watch in segments and be done by Monday. I've started already.

Flyboy: If you don't want to go to the church meeting, just say you don't want to go.
Girlfriend: I don't want to go.
Flyboy: *lets her out of the car at night on the side of the road alone*

Also, anyone who thinks that people don't like Christians because they are "too nice" . . . doesn't understand anything at all. It's like if a bunch of corporate CEOs got together and were like "I just don't get why people don't like us. Is it because we're so handsome? Yeah, that must be it."

I love everyone just not acknowledging that the youth pastor is 8 feet tall.

I'll be watching Leap this evening.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

SPOILER: After doing okay, the homophobia hits hard and fast around 22 minutes in. Did you know that being gay and slutty will get you the swine flu?!?!!??!!! The Jolly Green Giant's loser cousin taught me that at church club!

Also, I love that they were like "Hey Shane, welcome to your first church club! Anyway, tonight we're talking about how the world is ending."

ALSO: "When Jesus comes back, we'll KNOW it's Jesus. So if someone says they are Jesus, don't be fooled. Some people will think they are Jesus because they can do cool tricks. But you'll really know if it's him, so don't be fooled by the fake ones." . . . . huh?

Leap (2010) ‐

Joshua Feuerstein probably loves this film.

While I don't hate this film as much as some people do, I also wouldn't disagree with those who consider this to be 1/10 or 0.5/5 territory. First, I've said this in the past, but acting typically isn't something I pay attention to. Though I initially found the acting terrible to the point it seemed nobody was even trying in the first 5 minutes, I gradually adjusted the more it went on. After about 15 minutes, I became fully acclimated to the no effort style. This assuaged my hatred of the film, though I'll understand if others didn't have the same experience. As for the parkour, since the majority of the main characters were new to the sport made it easy to forgive how much of what was shown was painfully average. Given they only had several days of experience, their stunts naturally wouldn't be jaw‐dropping right at the get‐go. Of course, this justification doesn't explain Shane, but I still think he did pretty good at the very least. Not to mention I found the couple times he gave insight to the origins/sub‐terminology of the sport decently interesting. The propaganda though was a harder pill to swallow, especially as it got more overt in the final act. It panders to the unfortunate "Christians are persecuted by Athiests" variety who I find so eyerolling. The concern is nothing but ridiculous and baseless paranoia which makes those people look silly. And to top it off, the final act takes it in some extreme dramatic territory. Still, aside from the final act, the propaganda mostly loomed in the background, so I can't even say I hated this aspect. For the first hour, it was mostly a standard, cookie‐cutter story about a character embracing faith with occasional bits of propaganda thrown in. From the warning letter on, it was certainly nonstop cringe, but less than 20 minutes remained at that point. The only aspect which I could say I consistently disliked all the way through were the occasionally problematic religious teachings. The "You're going to hell if you don't believe in God" and the "Homosexuality is a sin" bits rubbed me the wrong way, just like they do in real life. The former line, in particular, had an incredibly gross payoff when it was used in reference to a murder victim late in the film. Overall, this is a solid bad film. For some, a terrible film, but I'll just settle for bad.

The hate-speech is, thus far, what's keeping this from being a hilarious, delightful bit of incompetent filmmaking fun.

Like, imagine if in the middle of Robot Monster, Ro-Man had stopped to be like "We have destroyed humanity because you are gay and sleep around too much."

"Everyone's sinned: you, me, Lisa."

LOL.


And I adore "No one can make you love. Love is a choice that you make." [But if you don't make that choice, you'll burn forever in hell no matter how pure your life has been, so . . . .]

Have you submitted a nomination yet?

My favorite line:


"they just believe whatever they're told without questioning anything"
-hateful Christian explaining the shortcomings of Atheists


Also:
Bible: "knowledge will spread"
Bible study guy: "OMG they predicted the Internet!"
(Paraphrasing)

Not yet. Admittedly I was going to try to get through one or two more if that's ok. If not no biggie.

Shane attends 10 minutes of a single church study group and comes to the next meeting with a conspiracy theory about microchip credit card implants being the mark of the beast.

Also, I love the voiceover about Shane needing to take a leap of faith, and we are shown Shane allegorically leaping off of a roof . . . into a dumpster. Feels right!

If it's wrong to refer to him as Darth Pastor, I don't want to be right.