First two reviews for ‘Left Behind’

Here are the first two big newspaper reviews I’ve seen for the Left Behind reboot, which arrives in theaters on Friday.

The movie’s producers are urging real, true Christian fans of the Left Behind series to invite their unsaved friends to see the movie with them, suggesting it will be a powerful evangelistic experience. Neither of these reviewers seems to have gone forward for the altar call.

• Bill Goodykuntz, Gannett, “Cage sleepwalks through terrible ‘Left Behind'”

Left Behind is a terrible movie, bad in almost every way, not even qualifying as so-bad-it’s-good material. The film, directed by Vic Armstrong, is based on the series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, about the [premillennial dispensationalist] Rapture, in which some people disappear, taken by Jesus, while others remain on Earth.

… Cage plays — with as little energy as possible — Rayford Steele, a pilot married to Irene (Lea Thompson), but since she’s gotten religion, as they say, in the last year or so, his eye has begun to wander. This makes for an awkward surprise reunion at an airport with his daughter, Chloe (Cassi Thompson), as he’s flirting with a flight attendant (Nicky Whelan). While Chloe is there she runs into Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray), a rugged, famous television journalist.

As fate would have it — you can say that about pretty much everything that happens in this movie — Buck is on Steele’s flight. Meanwhile Chloe goes home and argues with her mother; she’s not any more comfortable with her mom’s religious interests than her father is.

Chloe heads for the mall with her little brother, and while they are shopping, poof! He’s gone, just like that. So are some other people, at the mall and in other places, including the co-pilot on Steele’s plane. It seems random, but Chloe and her father gradually begin to understand what is going on, thanks to Irene’s proselytizing.

Up to this point the film is a study of a family and its problems, and where faith fits in. It’s heavy-handed as all get out, but it’s trying. But once the Rapture actually begins, the film takes a major shift, and the focus becomes getting Steele’s flight home safely. It’s like it turns into Airport 1975, and Cage is Charlton Heston.

… Also, the co-pilot disappears, and the plane is running out of fuel, and one of the engines is damaged, and some of the equipment is malfunctioning and … You get the picture. All that’s missing is Lloyd Bridges in the control tower saying, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.”

• Elizabeth Weitzman, The (N.Y.) Daily News, “Nicolas Cage’s thriller about the Rapture is so bad it’s also a mystery: Why did he make it?”

This failed epic — really, an epic failure — would barely be noticed, were it not for former Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage taking on a Sharknado-quality remake of a Kirk Cameron movie.

… Cage plays a pilot on an aircraft that was seemingly shot in someone’s basement. As Capt. Rayford Steele, he’s as shocked as anyone when half his passengers disappear. Where did they go? Why are they gone? His deeply religious wife, Irene (Lea Thompson), could have told him. But being a believer, she’s gone too.

Fortunately his daughter Chloe (Cassi Thomson), a proud skeptic, is still around to help the survivors. So is investigative journalist Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray). Journalists, after all, rarely take anything on faith.

Instead, we tend to ask a lot of questions. For example, what has gone so horribly wrong in Cage’s career that he is forced to accept any paycheck that comes his way? There’s no reason he shouldn’t make a religious movie, if that’s what speaks to him. But why would he make such a terrible one?

The script is barely patched together, the effects are laughably tinny and the performances are so stilted you’d think this was everyone’s first film. Honestly, Sharknado star Ian Ziering would have done a better job milking this material than Cage, who simply seems confused.

“I know you all want answers, and so do I,” intones Capt. Steele.

The sooner the better, please.