Left Behind

The Left Behind franchise – based on a best-selling run of Christian-themed American novels about the modern world being plunged into Biblical ‘end times’ – gets a big-screen reboot with this clumsy religious thriller, clearly intended to introduce the material to a more mainstream crowd. With Nicolas Cage starring, the reboot might pull a relatively wide Christian audience, but the plodding drama and unconvincing action won’t have much appeal for less committed moviegoers.

With veteran British stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong directing, the film goes through some odd bits of drama and comedy involving the perplexed passengers and some sentimental phone moments between father and daughter.

A mid-sized US cinema release on Oct 3 (by Freestyle Releasing for eOne) will give the film a shot at theatrical success, though matching the takes of recent faith-themed hits like Heaven is for Real, God’s Not Dead and Son of God seems unlikely. Even those films have been weak internationally, so prospects for Left Behind outside the US don’t look good.

Paul Lalonde and John Patus, who both worked on the three Left Behind films released straight to DVD a decade ago (the first also got a brief US theatrical run), wrote the reboot and they substantially rejig the story of the original 1995 novel. Omitting the Mideast geopolitics and the UN-heading Antichrist character, this version focuses on airline pilot Ray Steele (Cage, whose last hit was 2012’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance) and his daughter Chloe (Australian Cassi Thomson, from TV’s Big Love).

After a draggy prologue that establishes the characters’ religious skepticism (later to be eradicated, of course), the Bible-prophesied ‘Rapture’ causes millions of people around the world to suddenly disappear and the action splits into two strands: on the ground, Chloe looks for answers amid the ensuing chaos and in the air Ray, aided by TV reporter Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray, from web series Chosen). tries to calm the remaining passengers on his trans-Atlantic flight.

With veteran British stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong directing, the film goes through some odd bits of drama and comedy involving the perplexed passengers and some sentimental phone moments between father and daughter.

Eventually, the focus tightens onto Chloe’s efforts to help Ray land the damaged plane and while the sequence produces some genuine tension (in spite of below par effects) it’s too little, too late to save the film.

Not surprisingly – the book series includes another 15 novels continuing the story of the characters’ Antichrist-battling Tribulation Force – the reboot’s final scene prepares the way for a sequel.