Left Behind

Great concept, fantastic book series, the movie could have been a LOT better.

Now, I realize that when a movie attempts to capture the essence of a book, there have to be some sacrifices as far as details. I have read the book several times, and the movie somehow does not capture much of what the book conveys. Maybe it is time constraints that come with making a movie within, say, 90 minutes to 2 hours. But this movie seems rushed somehow. It did not let certain plotlines develop. In the book, Rayford only lusted after the stewardess, where in the movie, it seemed like it went a bit beyond that. Also, early in the movie, it seemed that Buck Williams already had a relationship with the Steele Family before the Rapture where it did not germinate until towards the end of the Left Behind book.

Maybe it was because of the low budget and time constraints. I remember when Kirk Cameron was fired up about doing the movie after reading the book. The funny thing is that this movie was produced without paying any attention to the details that made this book such a best seller. The basic idea behind the novel held true to the movie, but many key elements in the book were ignored.

My advice: Read the novel series, see the movie if you must for comparison's sake, not as a viable substitute to the novel.

I would like to say that I am a Christian, and I thought the movie was very much inspiring. My brother who is not a Christian, was touched. The thing is this movie is revealing what is going to happen. It is Biblical, and regardless of the acting or scripts, the concept of the movie is warning people about the inevitable. The movie is showing what could happen any time now. I would give the movie 8/10. It brought tears to my eyes for all the people left behind. It made myself look closely again at my Christianity, and It made my brother look more closely at his life.

It is easy to take potshots at this. It is absolutely horrible technically in every respect. And it is easy to imagine that the childish earnestness of those involved blinded them from critical vision -- or perhaps that no great art can come from a fundamentalist world. Who knows?

But there are other vapid movies out there too. What makes this (and 'Omega Code') so fascinating is that they were not intended to entertain, even to enlighten, but to proselytize. And some day soon this crowd will cease to be so amateurish -- down the street from me is Pat Roberstson's film 'university' with a virtual endowment of billions and the intent of being professionally slick. What then?

It is an interesting question. As it stands now, we have films that are made for profit. Most of these pander in some way. Then we have films that are made as art. Some of these pander as well. And we have propaganda films of various sorts whose purpose is purely to convince/convert/affirm. Of these, the latter are the only truly pornographic.

I think that as religious films become better and more common (they will), they become fair game for satire. Imagine a Scream about the apocalypse cults. Then instead of massive protests against a respectful film like 'Last Temptation' (shots were fired here!) what will we get? Imagine class war.

The film and the books behind it aren't very biblically accurate in any case. The rapture metaphor comes from Darius, who incidentally rebuilt the temple the first time, and invented modern Judaism as an experiment. Currency has been unified since then, 2500 years with only the names kept nationally. That's what is referenced in the B. Darius also revived Zoroastrianism which mixed with later Judaism to produce the essenism of John which Jesus adopted.

This in fact is not a film with Christian theology at all. They even fumbled that.

even though I liked the books better. I saw the movie a second time and liked it better than I did the first time.

I hope anyone who sees it who doesn't 'get it' or who feels that only fundamentalist christians can really understand it will just open their bibles. I had friends who saw X-Men and got me to read some of the comics saying I'd enjoy the movie more if I did. They were right. So why is it so terrible to say crack open your bible and check out the stuff?

Sometimes it really makes me laugh. If you wanted to become a lawyer you'd learn contract law, study the constitution and various cases before taking the bar. You wouldn't attempt to pass the bar exam by talking to friends about their opinions and watching "The Practice." But people who believe in God don't read His book. And admitting that you've "studied the bible," which, in the long run, will also make you more literate, is akin to saying you have a communicable disease; people stare at you and back away.

Open it up. Not only does it give guidelines on how to live, it gives you promises for what comes after. And if nothing else, it will give you a clue what this movie is all about.

It was an entertaining movie, well worth viewing. The Biblical parts didn't exactly correspond with my Bible, but the movie does make one think about the end of time. I enjoyed the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes. The inbetween stuff just didn't cut it movie-wise. I'm hard on all movies. The anti-christ character (actor) at the end was riveting. Kirk Cameron did a great job of acting. He was a believable character. The end of the movie was not an end. I like movies to have a finish. This one didn't. It leaves a lot to be imagined, but the directors should have ended it better. Seems they were doing or planning the sequel. I wish they would have told me that before I invested my time. All in all, a good movie.