A small town in Louisiana is suffering the 10 biblical plagues, and no one knows why, in The Reaping.

Hilary Swank stars as Katherine Winter, a professor at Louisiana State University who has lost her faith in God. Now Winter spends most of her time disproving what others consider to be miracles. But the occurrences in the small town of Haven might be a little more than she bargained for.

At first, Winter is convinced that there is a scientific explanation for what is going on. After a while, she is not so sure. Soon she finds herself questioning her faith yet again.

I thought the story was pretty good. I liked the idea of placing the 10 plagues in a more modern setting. While there were obvious religious undertones, they were not overdone.

While the story was fairly good there were definitely some things that should have been left out. Swank’s character is constantly having visions and flashbacks. Instead of them being just visions, the creators decided to make the audience wonder if Winter is actually experiencing them at the time or not. There is also one very unnecessary sex scene.

Aside from Swank, there are not really any big names in this movie. In fact I think the only other two people that people may recognize are AnnaSophia Robb and Stephen Rea. While I have not seen him in anything before, one of the actors that really stood out was Idris Elba, who played Ben. To be honest, I enjoyed his performance far more than I did Swank’s.

The Reaping is a movie that not everyone is going to like. I thought it was fairly good, but a couple of the other people I saw it with hated it. I was just glad to have a break from all of the hack and slash, gore for the sake of gore movies that have come out lately.

All in all, The Reaping was okay. The concept of it was good, but it failed to live up to its potential. It’s not really worth spending much money on, so if you have to see this movie it would be best to rent it.

GRADE: C

The Reaping, starring Hilary Swank, is perplexing in every sense, except that if you are looking for a horror film, it is not recommended.  It makes an okay thriller, if you can keep up with the fast-paced plot full of flashbacks and plagues.  In 96 minutes, the film makers managed to throw in a lot of stuff - not to say that The Reaping is one of those “thoughtful” films that have to be paused and discussed every five seconds, but my friends and I left the theatre with more than a few questions.  It took us a while to get the story straight. 

The Reaping is definitely worth a look, but don’t expect any thing too great.  The best part about the movie was the little girl, Loren McConnell, played by AnnaSophia Robb.  She was an integral part of the film, exuded a sense of power, portrayed her part perfectly, and showed she could be quite the opposite from her role as Violet Beauregarde in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  The adult actors, however, were good, but not excellent.  David Morrissey did a convincing job as Doug, the charming southern science school teacher, but Swank was not a Million Dollar Baby in this one (pun definitely intended).  In her defense, the script was very typical – even Robb’s character was cliché. 

The special effects weren’t as great as I thought they would be either.  The end scene was the best scene in the whole movie, with an apocalyptic look, a surprise and great acting.  It was like the rest of the movie was simply a mediocre build-up to the last few scenes.   The ending might not be able to save the whole movie from falling into the depths of the Wal-Mart discount bin, but it definitely wasn’t disappointing.  Watch out for the “could there be a sequel?” moment at the very end, though - it angered me.

I definitely have mixed feelings about The Reaping - it wasn’t better or worse than many movies of that genre, and the amount of enjoyment depends on the perspective of the viewer. 

GRADE: B-