The late, great critic Roger Ebert wrote, “A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.” Meaning it isn’t the story that’s ultimately important in storytelling, but how it is told. For example, The Birth of a Nation is both riveting and disgustingly racist. Could Left Behind pull off the same trick? After all, I’m hardly the target audience.
What it is about: Based on Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ best-selling, 16-book series of fundamentalist thrillers, Left Behind concerns those who are “left behind” after the Christian Rapture. With all believers absent with leave, the Antichrist starts his ascension, and only a few brave souls understand the peril.
Having read the first book, I can say it fails Ebert’s axiom with honors. It’s a fear-mongering rant against the deadly horrors of secular humanism, a leaden tome of speechifying dullness incapable of creating even the mildest of tension or interest, mostly due to a complete lack of authorial talent. It’s so tedious it can’t even be enjoyed as camp. Can the movie succeed where the book failed?
How it is about it: Such a wingnut-fundamentalist film probably scared off potential stars, but placing faith (as it were) in the acting prowess of TV’s Mike Seaver? Kirk Cameron has all the heft of a vacuous teen idol whose 15 minutes ended 20 years ago.
Yes, it’s arguably unfair to tar him with the sheer awfulness of his Growing Pains sitcom fame, but boy, howdy, it’s both easy and entirely accurate. (What, Stephen Baldwin wasn’t available?) Beyond Cameron’s black hole of charisma, there’s a cast of D-list television actors and slumming Canadian talent. I’ve seen better acting in low-rent lawyer commercials.
Directing-wise? Same issue. Don’t blame the budget; Michael Tolkin’s brilliant 1991 film, The Rapture, posits a biblical apocalypse, yet still manages to be intellectually and emotionally thrilling on a budget less than that of your average TBS sitcom. No such luck here with one Vic Sarin: We’re talking Uwe Boll levels of incompetence. It’s monotonous, dreary and, cinematically speaking, ugly, flat and bland.
In the end, Left Behind is a preachy and insulting hunk of dull so awful it could only appeals to zealots, so unpleasant it may convince believers to leave the church. It’s an excruciatingly bad story, told in the least interesting manner possible.
And worse than all that? It’s as boring as sin. —Corey Redekop
And yet, they made three sequels and are talking about a fourtj! And video games, comic books, etc. True believers don’t need talent or quality, just the message.