You’re going to jump on the first explanation.

I wanted to watch Left Behind: Rise of the Anti-Christ but I had to do the impossible first. I had to watch Left Behind, the 2014 remake starring Nicolas Cage. Directed by Vic Armstrong, the film has Nicolas Cage as Rayford Steele, an airline pilot who finds himself in a bit of a pickle when the rapture happens mid-flight to London from New York City. The film released to critical acclaim, if you believe that the audience was shouting “boo-urns.”

It’s impressive how the movie makes Lea Thompson who plays Steele’s wife Irene not attractive by giving her a dead stare and complete lack of emotion. She looks like she’s doing her parts while severely drunk which might actually be how the actress coped with taking the part. Irene has recently become an avid Christian and since this is a Christian propaganda film we don’t actually ever see or hear her do something Christian like give to charity or help people or stupid crap like that. But she does read the bible, she has a prayer table, she handwaves away atrocities that God lets happen, and she mentions God at literally every opportunity.

So naturally she gets raptured up to Heaven immediately.

Along with the babies and not Chad Michael Murray. I want a spinoff film to understand why dementia grandma’s husband got raptured up to Heaven and she didn’t. What we need is a prequel that showcases her days making videos for Bang Bros. Something tasteful. I also think it’d be pretty funny if there was one baby in the maternity ward at the hospital that didn’t get raptured. It’d be an interesting plot point at least and give the audience something to think about.

This movie is the worst kind of Christian propaganda film, the kind that actual Christians find offensive and condescending. Rayford’s daughter Chloe is not raptured presumably because she’s not a Christian and it’s because she has so much empathy for the suffering of others that she refuses to believe a real God would inflict such pain on his creations. Meanwhile Mom found a Bible in a Goodwill six months ago and again hasn’t shown any indication of doing Christian acts.

I guess it’s worth noting that there’s nothing particularly religious about this film outside of the whole rapture thing happening and someone mentions God once or twice. It’s all a backdrop for the rest of the film and it had to happen because naming the movie Nicolas Cage Lands A Plane while thinking about the estranged relationship with the daughter Chad Michael Murray wants to bang can’t carry an hour and forty five minute movie.

It’s also a ridiculously long title.

As someone who managed a retail outlet for several years I can see myself in Rayford’s boots. Especially the part where the plane passengers start screaming at him and beating down the cockpit door demanding that he answer the question on where everyone went. Yeah sure assholes, the pilot is going to be able to explain why a fifth of the plane just blinked out of existence while mid-flight. But literally nothing of note happens from the time the Rapture happens to the time the movie ends.

There’s no tension because the audience already knows the big twist, so we’re just kinda watching these characters stumbling around for the answer we already know. It’s also idiotic because they talk about the Rapture like they’re figuring out something very obscure, like if Nun showed up to reclaim the Earth from Egyptian theology. I think most people, even non-Christians, would be able to recognize the Rapture if tons of people suddenly disappeared leaving nothing but their clothes behind. They wouldn’t need to look through the person’s belongings to find their day planner with “Bible studies” in big letters.

They should have thrown a few twists in for good measure. For example, This Is the End came out just the year before and had a lot of interesting ideas on characters being raptured, like raptures happening throughout the film as characters find their genuine love of God. And let’s be fair, there’s a ton of people on Earth whose hearts are in the right place and would totally be into God and the Jesus if something happened that proved it was actually all real. Like the Rapture. So you might want to have a few raptures. Or since you’re God, just keep an active eye on people when they finally truly believe. Like in This Is the End.

Left Behind is a movie you shouldn’t watch, because it’s an absolute waste of time and isn’t good in any meaning of the word. Not even ironically. It’s an hour and forty five minutes of Nicolas Cage trying to land a plane and then landing the plane. You know he’s going to land a plane because this is the first book in a very long series and he’s the protagonist. I’m going to have to read the books now, I hear they’re much better than the films.

The credits are over 15 minutes long.

Rating: F–