Left Behind

I picked up Left Behind for no other reason than it was in the new release section (that's Australia for you), and it looked as if it might be worth watching.

In my opinion, I wasted my money. And considering that I used a free coupon to rent it, that's saying something.

However, I must point out that I'm not objecting to the Biblical content. Viewed simply as a fictional text, there's nothing wrong with the Bible; this is a fictional movie, so I don't have a problem per se with the content (although IMHO it makes it more fantasy than science fiction).

No, the problem with Left Behind is just that the movie totally fails to excite. The plot dawdles along at a painful pace for far too long, and even I figured out the Rapture part about ten minutes into it (I didn't initially believe that they would try and use that as the REAL explanation, but I wasn't exactly shocked when they did).

The story is not internally self consistent. We're told about a world wide hunger problem, but we're never shown this (all of the cast seem well fed, for example). We're expected to believe that the population of the planet buys the idea that some mysterious form of radiation has selectively wiped out millions of people in a wide spread area with no particular pattern (they wouldn't, especially considering that some of the world's top scientists are unlikely to have been "chosen"). Basically, given the situation at the START of the movie we should see a very different society - one on the edge of survival, with martial law and even open warfare (and we don't; America looks pretty much the same as it always does in Hollywood). AFTER the rapture, it should be even worse - and yes, we see a few signs that things are breaking down, but it's still largely business as usual.

Finally, the story doesn't have an ending. Apparently there's a sequel, but that doesn't excuse the lack of a finale in this movie. To all intents and purposes, they figure out what's going on and then ... it ends. No confrontation. No pay-off. Just the main character finally realising the truth of what the viewer noticed hours ago.

I've certainly seen worse movies, of course, but if you happen to see a copy of this on the store shelves, even at weekly prices... you would do best to simply let it remain Left Behind.

Christians give it a 10 and Christian haters give it a 0. Surprise, surprise! Can't we all just get along? Seriously, why can't anyone think any way other than "I'm a Christian and it is about Christ so it gets a 10" or "I don't like Christians so I have to give it a 0"?

The effects aren't great. They are on par with a USA original movie or a lower budget TV movie. But hey, Star Trek (Original) is much better than Next Generation so effects don't really matter unless all you want is eye candy (i.e. people that would never ever read a book). My wife read the books and begged me to watch the movie. I was raised a Christian but I am not really sure what I believe now, and I thought it was an ok movie. At least a 5 or 6. All of you Christians and Christian haters are no different. You are both prejudice against the other group. Grow up! I thought the story was a little better than average (6.5) and the acting & producing was average (4.5). I feel the story is the most important thing so I gave the movie a 6.0.

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.

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.