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| Here's some dialogue that might have improved the already-loathsome, though often hilarious dialogue in this dreadful God Squad disaster debacle. |
Dir. Vic Armstrong
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Nicky Whelan, Cassi Thomson, Lea Thompson, Jordin Sparks, Michael Klebba, Alec Rayne, Quinton Aaron
Review By Greg Klymkiw
There are movies more dreadful than Left Behind, but few as funny. It's a slightly bigger budgeted reboot of an early 90s version starring Kirk Cameron which, I've not seen but is perhaps even funnier than this one, but until I partake of that, this will do nicely. What we're dealing with is a cellar-dweller disaster movie with an inept screenplay, oh-so blessed with an irredeemably Christian fundamentalist slant.
A somnambulist airline pilot (Nicholas Cage) contemplates an adulterous tryst with a hot stewardess (Nicky Whelan) because his loopy wife (Lea Thompson) has found Jesus H. Christ. Cage's hot daughter (Cassi Thomson) isn't too crazy about Mom's new marriage to the Son o' God, either, but she's still cheesed at Dad for never being at home and ogling a young lady who's young enough to be his daughter and, uh, bears a not-too-dissimilar look to her (blond, perky, sexy and well-proportioned for humping).
It seems Daughter Dearest is wet for a hunky journalist (Chad Michael Murray) who'll be flying in first class aboard Daddy's plane, but not before the two potential sack-mates engage in an interminable conversation within an airport cafe (which is supposed to be LaGuardia in Queens, but looks suspiciously like no airport in New York State). Once the plane heads across the pond to Blighty, Cage's daughter goes to their suburban family home, looking suspiciously like a neighbourhood nowhere near the isle of Manhattan.
As Mom prays to Jesus, Darling Daughter grabs her little brother and heads to the mall, looking like no mall from the neck o' the woods in which the movie is supposedly set. Soon, the fake airplane Cage flies is sailing through the skies and we cross-cut twixt this locale and the mall. And wouldn't you know it, but on the plane and at the mall - at the same time, no less - every single child and quite a few adults completely vanish into thin air, leaving behind piles of their previously-adorned (though freshly-cleaned-and-pressed) clothing. Seems like something sinister is afoot.
God only knows what.
Speaking of God, He, as in God, the Father, that is, appears to be the Holy Culprit behind this mystery. The fake airplane encounters major troubles and the leafy, suburban paradise in New York is hit with all manner of Hellish activity and hysteria. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that, Our Lord has snatched up all the Believers to keep them safe in Heaven, while all the non-Believers suffer disaster and violence within a veritable apocalypse, rendered not-too convincingly on the movie's supposed budget, most of which has clearly been spent on Nicholas Cage's salary. Given that Cage expresses only two emotions (I'll not spoil them for you), one suspects the producers might have been financially cold-cocked by his agents.
In addition to one hilariously unintentional line of dialogue after another, the movie delivers a midget who is a racist and a devout Muslim who is NOT saved by God because, he is, well, a Muslim.
And this, believers and non-believers alike, is how this awful(ly) funny movie rolls. Christians, especially of the fundamentalist variety, are not too bright to begin with, but any of them who swallow this bilge water are no doubt completely and utterly bereft of brain.
The rest of us, though, can have ourselves a good, old, knee-slapping frolic through The Rapture.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star
Left Behind is in wide theatrical release via eOne.