Will Rapturepalooza actually be funny? Even after watching its entire red band trailer, which is chock-full of gags, the answer to that question still doesn’t really become clear. There are so many jokes that fly by here, some good and some bad, that it’s near impossible to tell what the hit-to-miss ratio is going to be like when you actually sit down to watch the thing in the theater. Has this trailer basically given away every joke the film makes, or are there still plenty more waiting to be discovered? Are the jokes we do see the broadest, silliest ones, meant to attract a general audience, or is broad silliness all the movie has to offer? It’s tough to say.
But what’s clear is that director Paul Middleditch and writer Chris Matheson haven’t pulled any punches with what they’re willing to satirize. They shoot Jesus out of the sky with a laser cannon. They make light of Orlando being decimated in a nuclear explosion. You don’t have to go into Rapturepalooza worried about it half-stepping as far as the comedy is concerned.
And you don’t have to worry about the performances either. Middleditch and his team have signed up Anna Kendrick and John Francis Daley in the lead roles, they’ve got funnymen like Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson showing off in the sizzle roles, and a quick glance at the cast list reveals that names like Thomas Lennon, Ken Jeong, Paul Scheer, Ana Gasteyer, and Rob Huebel all show up as well.
Honestly though, even with half of the jokes in this trailer falling kind of flat, we were probably all already sold due to the presence of Anna Kendrick alone, weren’t we? Is there anybody left who doesn’t have a crush on her at this point?
Rapturepalooza opens later this year. [IGN]