| The Amazing Praybeyt Benjamin | |
| Director: | Wenn V. Deramas |
| Music: | Vincent de Jesus |
| Cinematography: | Elmer Despa |
| Editing: | Marya Ignacio |
| Runtime: | 105 minutes |
| Country: | Philippines |
| Gross: | [1] |
The Amazing Praybeyt Benjamin is a 2014 Philippine action comedy parody film written and directed by Wenn V. Deramas. It is the sequel to the 2011 film The Unkabogable Praybeyt Benjamin. The film is one of the official entries to the 40th Metro Manila Film Festival. Vice Ganda reprised his role as Colonel Benjamin "Benjie" Santos VIII together with a supporting cast Richard Yap, Tom Rodriguez, Bimby Yap and introducing Alex Gonzaga with the special participation of Eddie Garcia.
On a mission in Paris, Praybeyt Benjamin and his platoon defeat a horde of zombies in a parody of Plants vs. Zombies, leading to his promotion to Colonel. To prepare him better, Benjamin is assigned under a new general, Wilson Chua. However, Benjamin screws up a subsequent mission against terrorists led by Jan Jaranjan and is narrowly rescued by his grandfather, who sacrifices himself to save him. Benjamin is about to be dismissed from service when Gen. Chua saves him by giving him a mission – to guard his bratty son Bimbee, who holds a clue to the location of the terrorists' next three bomb attacks. As he watches over Bimbee, Benjamin finds himself clashing with Misty, General Chua's daughter, and the meddlesome housemaid Gundina, while trying to gain information from a recalcitrant Bimby. However, as he gets to know Bimbee more, he learns that Bimbee is a kid deprived of love from family – something that he has ignored in his quest to be on top again. The first bomb explodes harmlessly while the second is found and defused by a Benjamin, who is fired shortly afterwards after his arrogance causes a screw-up. While relearning his humility with his family, the terrorists abduct Bimby and take him to their last target, a shopping mall. Benjamin is reinstated into the army, rescues Bimby and defuses the bomb, after which he flies off with Bimby on an umbrella resembling that of Mary Poppins.
Upon mid-credits, Benjie celebrated his birthday with his family and friends. Wilson heard about Benjie not going back to the service. Benjie said that he wanted to take a break and spend more time with his family. But, Wilson said that they need him and he assigned a juvenile delinquent, who wishes to be a soldier. There, Wilson introduced James Anred to Benjie. Because of James's good looks Benjie, decided to accept Wilson's offer.
MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino, revealed that The Amazing Praybeyt Benjamin topped the box office record of the 40th Metro Manila Film Festival's opening day on December 25, 2014, in a radio interview in DZMM. Praybeyt Benjamin was ahead of fellow entrants, My Big Bossing's Adventures and Feng Shui 2 ranked second and third respectively in terms of box office record on the opening day of the film festival. Tolentino did not state the official figures of the sales on the opening day of the film festival during the said interview.[2]
During her stint at The Buzz where is she is one of the hosts, Kris Aquino said that The Amazing Praybeyt Benjamin recorded P172 million worth of box office receipts as of 3:00 pm PST December 28, 2014.[3]
In a January 15, 2015, episode of Vice Ganda's variety show, It's Showtime, he announced that the movie closed the day before with P435 million earnings, surpassing the film Starting Over Again in terms of domestic earnings. He now hold the distinction of starring in 7 of the 20 highest-grossing films in the Philippines of all time.
Despite being a high-grossing film at the 40th Metro Manila Film Festival, reception for The Amazing Praybeyt Benjamin generally received negative reviews.[4]
Zig Marasigan of Rappler, described the film in his movie review as "a brainless, hyper-stylized and utterly ridiculous family comedy". Marasigan criticized Praybeyt Benjamin for "unashamedly made for profit". He also described the film as "cheap, tacky and absolutely nonsensical. But say what you might about the film's level of intellectualism (or lack thereof), it is at least honest about its intentions". Marasigan however acknowledged that the film fulfilled its purpose, to primarily entertain its target audience.[5]
Bubbles Salvador at the Philippine Entertainment Portal, has a more positive review for the film. While Salvador took note of one loophole in the plot of the film - namely the lack of resolution between Bimbee and his father, with the former feeling unloved by the latter, Salvador described Praybeyt Benjamin 2 as "worth of one's couple of hours at the cinema this holiday season, if one is not looking for a lesson in history, a love story, or a good scare, and would settle for a light and funny action comedy".[6]
After the Leap Day 2016 passing of Deramas, a third film was announced as an entry to the 46th Metro Manila Film Festival. Vice Ganda was expected to reprise his role.[7] Filming for the Praybeyt Benjamin sequel was delayed due to logistics issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainties caused by the non-renewal of ABS-CBN's broadcast franchise.[8] [9] As a script-based submission to the film festival, Praybeyt Benjamin would have to be produced by November 30, 2020.[9] The film was not listed the final ten official entries of the film festival announced in November 2020.