The Mark Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

The Mark Blu-ray Movie Review

...of the beast.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 22, 2015

Many corners of the Internet are predicting the end times are right around the corner. That's not new, not for the web and not for man, certainly, people for whom end times Biblical prophecy has been a source of fascination for thousands of years. One of the most interesting nuggets in the book of Revelation -- the last book of the Bible that lays out what the end of the world is to look like -- talks about a population-wide "mark" taken on the hand or the forehead which will be a requirement for commerce and will be willingly accepted by a large swath of the populace. Some think it's the smartphone, others a tattoo of some kind, and others still some sort of implanted digital chip. It's the latter that's the subject of the aptly titled The Mark, a Christian-focued end-times film from Pure Flix Entertainment that puts together an opening salvo vision of the end of the world: the aforementioned chip, economic turmoil, government collapse, mass panic, and the rapture. It's a fairly simple film, a small budget movie that nobly tries to squeeze its production for all its worth and lay out Biblical prophecy in the guise of an entertaining motion picture.

Superman punch incoming.

Ex-combat soldier-turned-private security guard Chad Turner (Craig Sheffer) is guarding a secret experiment conducted by the Avanti corporation. When the lab is attacked, Turner is implanted with a biometric chip as a last resort to safeguard the technology. He and an Avanti executive named Cooper (Eric Roberts) board a plan bound for Germany where Turner is to be delivered to the G20 summit. He's familiar with one of the stewardesses, a woman named Dao (Sonia Couling). Also on the flight is Pike (Gary Daniels) and a band of heavily armed raiders who have been hired to retrieve the chip at all costs. But Turner must be kept alive; the chip depends on his life functions to operate, and removing it or even severing his arm would render it useless. Now, he must do battle with the bad guys, save the plane, and figure out what greater role he's to play in the sudden and violent collapse of the world below.

The Mark gets by with "adequate" grades across the board, offering a serviceably constructed and moderately entertaining movie that puts story and action above its faith-based roots. On the surface, it plays like a more mainstream film in the tradition of Flightplan and Red Eye with a bit of Executive Decision thrown into the mix for good measure. The movie lacks the finesse and skillful production values of those, and it also comes up short in terms of rhythm, audience engagement, and performances, but for a small budget film aimed at a specific market, The Mark hits the target more often than it falls short, at least when considered within its own context. It's certainly one of the more impressive Christian films on the market, at least within its more action-oriented and end-times bubble (more dramatically inclined movies like God's Not Dead that hail from other genres notwithstanding). Add that the movie approaches its story from an interesting angle with multiple intersections, and The Mark is a candidate for crossover viewing that might appeal to those outside of the Christian film market in search of something to watch within the broader end-times genre.

Where the film really hurts is in its lack of technical polish. Performances generally satisfy, even as the characters are fairly one dimensional and lacking a true, complex arc beyond the general A to B path the movie puts them on. It plays around with Turner's faith and hints at a few other nuggets of Christianity on the flight but, for the most part, all the characters are but simple vessels satisfying a requirement. The picture lacks tight, cohesive production design, sight and sound alike. While the movie doesn't fall so completely, insanely far from grace as to obviously build the aircraft set out of flimsy plywood, it's still relatively spartan, particularly when compared to other "airplane" movies with the budget to pull off a convincing location and make it feel significant larger than it is. Sound effects are disappointingly shallow as well, and action scenes are staged with relative simplicity that make a WWE fistfight between a couple of jobbers look good in comparison. Still, it all comes together just well enough to make for a passable, but at the end of the day visually unremarkable, low budget film.

The Mark Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Mark's 1080p transfer appears somewhat mis-framed at the odd 2.02:1 aspect ratio. Despite that, the movie looks pretty good on the surface. It lacks the enhanced crispness and raw attention to detail one would find on a production made with higher end photographic equipment, but all things considered this digital shoot's Blu-ray does reveal some complex facial features, intimate clothing seams, and good general details round the plane, whether in the galley, in the various seating sections, on the cockpit instrument cluster, or in the plane's guts. Colors aren't tremendously vibrant or even all that varied; the movie is made mostly of shades of black, white, blue, and beige. Black levels aren't bad -- the opening nighttime sequence looks rather good -- and flesh tones aren't problematic. The image does struggle with banding, minor bouts of noise, and light compression artifacts. Still, it's a positive, largely healthy image on the whole.

The Mark Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Mark features a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that, despite the added channels, falls relatively flat. Gunfire is disappointingly puny and lacks more than cursory sonic definition. Explosions are likewise dull and muted with little heft and without much of a raw impact on the listener. The track does spread some heavy rainfall around the stage nicely enough, again, though, without an abundance of realistic clarity or immersion. The surrounds carry a little bit of general action and music but fail to help create a full, rich, detailed sonic environment. Music itself enjoys decent clarity and front side space. Passenger screams fall flat and lack vitality, and general dialogue is, mostly, fine, save for some lip synch issues and, sometimes, a hollow and sharp edge (check out a cockpit exchange around the 20-minute mark).

The Mark Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Mark contains a featurette and a few trailers.

• Behind the Scenes (1080p, 7:40): Raw on-set footage and cast interview clips that look at characters, story details, themes, shooting locations, visual effects work, and more.
• Trailers (1080p): The Mark, The Mark Redemption, Escape, Christmas Angel, Encounter Paradise Lost, Apostle Peter and the Last Supper, and Brother White.

The Mark Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Mark works well enough as a low budget Action/Thriller with spiritual overtones that force a man to examine his faith when he finds himself in the middle of the book of Revelation come to life at, for him, 30,000 feet. The movie satisfies base requirements, squeezing just enough out of its production, its acting, and its story to make for a passable small-scale end-times movie for the Christian audience. The story continues in The Mark 2: Redemption, also on Blu-ray. Pure Flix Entertainment's Blu-ray release of The Mark offers decent video, passable audio, and no major extras of note. Rent it.