Nicolas Cage thriller about the Rapture is so bad it's also a mystery: Why did he make it? [View all]

[Liberal_in_LA]

'Left Behind': Movie review
Nicolas Cage thriller about the Rapture is so bad it's also a mystery: Why did he make it?

This failed epic — really, an epic failure — would barely be noticed, were it not for former Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage taking on a “Sharknado”-quality remake of a Kirk Cameron movie.

If you saw the 2000 original, you know that “Left Behind” is based on Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s evangelical novel about the Rapture. Director Vic Armstrong seems to have hustled up his budget for this Z-grade rehash by rifling through couch cushions, which is too bad. A big-deal event like the coming of Armageddon deserves some big-time special effects.

Instead, Cage plays a pilot on an aircraft that was seemingly shot in someone’s basement. As Capt. Rayford Steele, he’s as shocked as anyone when half his passengers disappear. Where did they go? Why are they gone? His deeply religious wife, Irene (Lea Thompson), could have told him. But being a believer, she’s gone too.

Fortunately his daughter Chloe (Cassi Thomson), a proud skeptic, is still around to help the survivors. So is investigative journalist Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray). Journalists, after all, rarely take anything on faith.

Instead, we tend to ask a lot of questions. For example, what has gone so horribly wrong in Cage’s career that he is forced to accept any paycheck that comes his way? There’s no reason he shouldn’t make a religious movie, if that’s what speaks to him. But why would he make such a terrible one?

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/left-behind-movie-review-article-1.1959634