Les oubliés

Once again I was deceived by the trailers as they made this movie look absolutely amazing; however, the trailers were the only good things that came out of this movie, and that says a lot.

First of all, we have the common Christian movie stereotype where some of a family is for God, and some of it is against God. Than we are provided with the frequent misunderstandings non-Christians face regarding the meaning of scripture due to Christians who have almost 0 theological education. So because the Christians fail to provide an adequate answer, the non-Christian lashes out. At least provide the audience with some level of complexity if you're going to have some kind of a theological debate. Your audience understands more than you think. Now if we could simply ignore the horrendous script not to mention the awful acting, we still have a movie full of stereotypes regarding non-Christians, Christians, Muslisms and even smaller people (just trying to be politically correct) which got old very fast.

But believe it or not, this is not even the worst part of the movie! The worst part is the terrible background music! To put it bluntly, it was GARBAGE!! It was so floaty and totally ruined the atmosphere. Now don't get me wrong, some movies require floaty music, but it would have made more sense to have music that was thematically apocalyptic. For example, Armageddon, Independence Day, or World War Z each had excellent pieces which blend perfectly into the atmosphere of the movie. The fact is even if the script to a movie is mediocre, having an excellent soundtrack can drastically improve the atmosphere. With a corny 80's saxaphone piece playing in the background, or cheesy orchestral music, which sounded digital, my wife and I walked out of the movie going "what did we just see?"

Though I am a pastor, I was hoping to be raptured during the movie. Do what I should have done and save your money by not seeing this film.

**Spoilers**

Now obviously everyone has reviewed this saying how terrible it is. So I thought I would start picking holes in the aviation side of things. In no particular order (and ones i can remember)

1. Captain leaving the flight deck without really talking to the F/O, no handover of control.

2. Captain returns to the flight deck using emergency flight deck access code. This does not unlock the door immediately.

3. Why is the aircraft in an unusual attitude? At that altitude the aircraft would be on autopilot, not manual flight. So without either pilot on the flightdeck it would continue straight and level and the current speed until the fuel ran out.

4. Non-Standard unusual attitude recovery (disregarding the fact it wouldn't get into one)

5. TCAS with the other aircraft. Capt failed to follow the TCAS resolution advisory which would have guaranteed minimum separation between the 2 aircraft.

6. With that substitutional damage on the aircraft wing there would be an incredible amount of airframe vibration.

7. wing was damaged, why does he lose elevator control?

8. At point of divert JFK would not be the best airport to divert too. The great circle route between JFK and London would take you up the coast of Canada then passing just south of greenland. Most likely airport which could take an aircraft at that size would likely be Gander or similar.

9. Changing aircraft type throughout the film.

10. A lot of none-standard Radio Transmissions 10.1 using names on RT 10.2 Maydays are initiated by saying mayday 3 times 10.3 after declaring a mayday your normal callsign is preceded by mayday 10.4 all radio communication involves your callsign to identify who is talking and who you are talking too. 10.5 all attempts to contact were on VHF radio, no attempt made on HF? 10.6 while trying to make mayday he was selected on 121.9 (not a standard oceanic frequency) and while changing the dial he never actually made it active frequency so was always transmitting on 121.9 10.7 if you failed to contact anyone on a atc frequency a pilot would likely try 121.5 (guard) or 123.45 (aircraft to aircraft)

11. Failure of flight controls would make the autopilot unusable. However he seems to continue using it (though seemingly from other parts of the film there is no continuity regarding the autopilot)

12. Fuel situation, at the start of the flight the Capt says it will be a 6.5 hour flight, taking into account reserves and alternate fuel it is likely to be a conservative fuel for about 8.5-9 hours. However, he has a major fuel leak at the 3 hour mark which would probably cost him more than any reserves he had yet they somehow manage to fly 3 hours return back to JFK.

13. Sat phone problem (not strictly aviation but bear with me). Continually failing to contact on sat phone is a problem, but there is another service provided by Stockholm radio (HF, so would work in the middle of the Atlantic) which allows you to call a any phone in the world.

14. Ups the cabin altitude to force people to put on masks, this is possible but wouldn't happen as quickly as shown.

15.claims to be flying a 400 tonne aircraft. seems very heavy for aircraft shown in the film. (for reference, Max Takeof weights for A330: 242 tonnes: B757 255 tonnes: B777: 380 tonnes)

16. landing a "400 tonne" aircraft without flaps, spoilers, etc. is not possible, would be looking at at least 2-3miles minimum

17. Wing magically repairs itself

18. with no engines you would have no hydraulic pressure, would have to be a manual gear extension which he didn't do

19. wouldn't be able to lift the wing again once on the ground. it wouldn't provide enough lifting moment

20. evacuating the pane. as soon the door opened the slide would inflate. wouldn't have to push it out afterwards.

21. aircraft evacuation slides are very hard and don't give you any bounce as demonstrated when the guy was kicked off the plane.

22. very low quota of cabin crew for the size of the aircraft. rule is 1 per 50 passengers minimum.

23. when evacuation is undertaken, general rule is get away from the aircraft. not mill about near the burning wreckage.

Overall this film was terrible. I am sure i missed a few holes in the aviation side too but this made it slightly more amusing for me while watching.

Source of knowledge about the holes in the aviation parts, I am a commercial Pilot.

The film is pretty straight forward. Not well written. And much of the acting is pretty bad. The better actors are the top billed: Nick Cage and the guy from One Tree Hill. Many of the actors on the plane were terrible. The blonde flight attendant wasn't bad although she seems to be kinda unknown. Jordan Sparks should stick to singing.

With all that being said, this is a niche film for a certain audience (Christians). I'm not sure why atheists and agnostics would watch it and then be totally annoyed or angered by it because of its Christian themes. The film is about the Christian Rapture. And I'm sure most people knew that before watching.

The problem with 90% of the reviews here are that they are biased. Their reviews aren't based on how bad the film is, but instead on their disagreement with the religious ideology behind the film, and their rejection of Christianity. In other words, they're reviewing Christianity instead of the film. But in terms of quality, this film is on par with Sharknado. And this does not deserve the title of Nick Cage's worst film. That prestigious distinction still goes to The Wicker Man.

Its about a bizarre disappearance of millions of people.

Oh no, wait, it's about Nicolas Cage landing a plane.

Meh.

Let me first say that I am a Christian. I watch campy Christian movies solely for the sake to have some wholesome entertainment. I clearly remember the impact of reading the Left Behind book almost 16 years ago as a boy in middle school. Few other books have had such a profound impact on my life so I hold the entire series close to heart.

However, I share all this to say that this movie is nothing but a hot mess. Here's a short list of sins. 1.) A soundtrack that sounds like bad elevator music 2.) Maybe it was just my theater but the dialogue was also difficult to hear 3.) Casually calm characters on the airplane after one of the most horrifying events known to mankind has just occurred 4.) Out of place comedic relief and 5.) So-so acting.

To be fair though, there were some improvements from the original movie. The rapture scene was markedly improved and actually made me gasp because it truly occurs unexpectedly. The action shots were also much better and the acting was improved but for the star power involved was rather weak. Many of the airplane scenes felt overly contrived with stilted acting.

The movie doesn't necessarily follow the plot of the Left Behind book as it's merely inspired by it but it doesn't matter with all the aforementioned problems. There's also a lot less preaching in this film than the original but frankly could have used more as to convey some message of inspiration.

If you're a fan of the Left Behind series I wouldn't say completely disregard this film but please don't have high expectations that this movie will deliver and improve on the original. I've waited 16 years for a movie to convey the fear, excitement, and triumph that enthralled me when I was an 11 year old boy staying up to the wee hours of the morning trying to read just one more page of the book. After watching this movie, it looks like I'll have to wait for another remake.