I checked out the new Left Behind Christian-themed movie… based on the first book in a long series of biblical rapture novels and technically (I guess) a remake of the earlier movie version starring Kirk Cameron. This one is not the low budget (and kind of unintentionally campy and melodramatic) film the first was – it has a bigger budget, better production values, and a real cast (sorry Kirk Cameron).

The new movie stars Nicholas Cage (with the unlikely name of Rayford Steel) in a rather dull, doing it for the paycheck Nicholas Cage performance. If there was ever a time for him to freak out, this would have been it. But alas.

Taking the Kirk Cameron roll is TV’s Chad Michael Murray as Buck Williams (another classy name). Kirk Cameron was much too young and baby-faced to play hard-bitten investigative journalist Buck Williams… it called for an older, more grizzled man. Chad Michael Murray has grown some facial hair and is at least a better actor than Cameron… so he’s a little more believable in general. Or maybe I’m just having One Tree Hill flashbacks.

Also starring Jordin Sparks, Lea Thompson, and a gal named Cassi Thomas who is basically Kristen Bell if Kristen Bell were to make a bible movie and somehow not say something deeply sarcastic. The rest of the cast hover between unknown and uncastable in another movie.

But, yeah, what about the movie? Basic premise is that the Book of Revelations was right and God took all the actually religious Christian (and all the children, even the ones who are jerks) and left behind the faithless, the in-name-only fake Christians, the sinners, the ones with dirty thoughts (but no dirty actions), and the non-Christians. So it theoretically follow the chaos that sudden departure results in (and maybe a tough of religious conversion following… but not really).

Look… christian themed movies have a hard time getting made and an even harder time getting respect. They are often low budget, overly earnest, and are really only preaching to the choir (so to speak). Even the ones that actually get a budget I think are reviewed poorly by professionals just because they are Christian-themed. So I like to go into them (assuming I know they are christian themed movies) with an open mind. And I think I have done so in the past. Because as Roger Ebert once said, it’s not what the movie’s about, it’s how it’s about it. You can make a good movie about any dumb thing and a terrible movie with the greatest premise.

So it’s with all honesty I say this is a pretty lousy movie… not because it’s christian themed, but because it’s a lousy movie. It’s sluggish when it needs to be fast-paced… it’s an unending 110 minutes of people wandering around city streets and people trapped on an airplane without contact with the ground. This is a 110 minute movie… and that is a real problem because the movie doesn’t have enough story and the director and editor didn’t know how to keep the storing moving… how to keep events thrilling, confusing, frightening, or much of anything. It’s just dull and lifeless with scenes that go on and on and on when the movie needs to be plowing forward.

The earlier Kirk-Cameronized movie had the guts to be about what the book was about… and that included a lot of really hyperbolic and corny political drama and espionage done on a low budget and while being earnestly about what it was about. And it did it in all in 96 minutes (according to IMDB). This movie may not have needed to go that far if they were trying to soften the cheeseball or paranoia factor, but at least it could told its story in less time or given us more about how the world reacts and copes.

I’ve typed a lot of words for a movie that you’ve probably never heard of or realized was released. I’m not sure why I did other than to justify a bad review for a bad movie. I’m not sure why I thought I had to.