“ISIS Rising” (2013) is a film with no educational value, and I can’t believe anyone could find it helpful in understanding the terrifying events connected with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Throughout this film’s entire running length, it yields no genuine insight into the international crisis. Indeed, it doesn’t even provide the viewer with any information whatsoever! I’d rate it at a 0 out of 10.
The filmmakers here made a truly bizarre major creative decision in trying to inform the viewer via … metaphor? We are actually introduced early on to a character name “ISIS.” She is, inexplicably, a buxom female mummy. No … you read that right. ISIS is represented by a major character who is a big-bosomed, female mummy. She fights a male mummy (presumably representing Western democracies?!). In fact, the entire film plays out like a low-budget pageant set in ancient Egypt. Why was that choice made? How does the pantheon of ancient Egyptian Gods relate to radical Islam in the modern world? Isn’t that a bit like employing Roman mythology as a metaphor for contemporary Christianity, Judaism, or another modern religion?
There is a preponderance of breasts. What did they symbolize? Iraq and Syria? When ISIS the lady mummy clutches her breasts, does that represent the terrorist army clutching the two countries in its grip? And what about the barely dressed male mummy? Should I be offended that the United States and her allies are represented by some guy’s giant schvantz?
Skip this.
