The Only Thing Left Behind was a Lot to be Desired
Excited About the Source Material
Apologies for the late post, friends. I’ve had an action packed Friday. This weekend you have two choices: Left Behind and Gone Girl. Two movies I was excited to see… 1 out of 2 ain’t bad, though. I remember reading the left behind books in school as a young boss coming up in the world (Ah! Those were the days!). I remember the first movies that came out. Even after reading the books, I was still glued to the films to see how everything would turn out. At the end of it all, I didn’t feel like there was any resolution and just wanted another opportunity to see this vision of the end of days unfold on-screen.
When I first saw the trailer for Left Behind, I got excited for another chance that this story could get the big screen treatment. Granted, it was going to star Nicholas Cage, but, truth be told, even though he is portrayed as a caricature of himself, he’s a solid actor when he needs to be. This being said, hearing his name being mentioned in the cast of this movie didn’t make me shutter in the least. I was thinking this would be a decent movie. The story is there, you just need to solidly tell it.
They Left Behind Their Conviction
Unfortunately, this telling of the book lacked any kind of force or conviction behind it. For a movie to be a success, whether faith-based or not, there needs to be a considerable amount of conviction behind it. The people apart of the film-making process need to believe in the material that they are producing. Left Behind, did not give that feeling of conviction. They didn’t stand by what they were producing, in my opinion. It was almost as if they were afraid to admit that this was a Christian movie. Frankly, there’s no reason to produce material if you can’t stand behind it.
Technically speaking, the movie left a lot to be desired. The dialogue felt so labored. Pauses in conversation took you out of the film. Some of the music choices were a little unnecessary. Characters that should have more of an opportunity to show through, just disappeared in the background, and characters that should have been in the background made more noise than they should have. The film’s plot development played out like disaster film instead of viewing the drama the story offers. The character study potential that this film had would have allowed us to watch the journey of some unique individuals coming into enlightenment and a better understanding of the world they are now a part of.
Wait For Netflix Release
Overall, this movie would be worth the time to see, and, to me, that’s really disappointing. I was expecting a bit more from this film and it fell very short of those expectations. Even as a fan of the book series and earlier films, I was not satisfied with the path of the movie at all, and would discourage fans of the series to just leave this one alone. I’d wait for this to be available on Netflix. Judging by Nicholas Cage’s recent releases, I’m expecting this to be the case very soon.