So, here's the premise: all the Christians (and cute children) disappear suddenly. What will you do with that? Why, of course, let's focus on a single plane trying, despite the fact that they still have a pilot, not to crash. Christian filmmaking FTW.
Left Behind (2014) is the latest attempt to re-boot a film series based on the popular book series of the same name. The previous manifestation featured a bland script, poor acting, and, of course, a "film star" whose career was just slightly past its prime. In the current manifestation, not much has changed, except that we get Nicolas Cage, of National Treasure infamy, instead of Kirk Cameron, of fundamentalist infamy.
It would probably earn me a few brownie points to spend some time explaining what was wrong with premillennialism and the rapture thesis that goes along with it. I'll leave that aside. I don't always write just to please my audience, unlike some filmmakers....What we have in front of us is a movie in which all of us pretty much knew what was going to happen--well all of us who read the original series, unlike you godless heathen, Muslims, Catholics, atheists, animists, postmillennialists, amillennialists, (heaving for breath), Lutherans, Democrats, etc. etc. Throughout the whole world, everything is going terribly, especially for a family in which one member has become a Christian; then all the Christians disappear, and everything gets worse.
Yep. That's pretty much it. There are no cool visuals of a world gone mad, except in the always-sane (sarcasm) world of hospital triage and shopping malls. The rise of the Antichrist, which would have at least given someone the chance to have a little fun with the movie, is completely absent. There is a little bit of praying, in case someone stumbled into the theater thinking that this was a secular movie, and, to top it all off, a verse from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. Even the (mildly) interesting theological quandaries posed by such an event are passed over with a few moments of college-student outrage from the female lead (Cassi Thompson).
And that is just what is missing. Everything else in the movie is awful as well. The extras act very much like nice Church people who were told to act bada** (asterisks included) for a few seconds and/or confused and frightened. The script makes the usual Christian-movie mistake of trying to cram as many explanations as it can into every sentence. Nicolas Cage is the best actor on screen--and that should tell you all you need to know about the rest of the actors. The human interest angle of this movie is broken up by cheap scares from an old-fashioned telephone and, of all things, dwarf jokes. Yes, in 2014, Christians are entertaining themselves with jokes about little people. 'Cause 'Merica.
I can't help but think of what a missed opportunity this was. What could be a great movie based on a ridiculous theory turns out to be as big of a flop as 2012--and that movie was at least as faithful to the Mayan religion as this one is to Christianity. I mean, seriously, you have a sci-fi/fantasy premise that all the children in the world disappear, a premise that a huge number of people actually think is going to happen someday, and THIS is all you do with it? Even the books did a better job, and that is saying a lot.
Oh, you thought I was going to say that this was a missed opportunity for evangelism? Nope. It wasn't. I think the movie showcased the ideology behind it perfectly.
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