Plot Summary
In an instant, millions vanish all around the world, causing the planet to descend into chaos as planes go down, cars drive into buildings, and unrest erupts everywhere. Pilot Rayford Steele finds nearly half of his plane’s manifest (haha) missing. Reporter Buck Williams is on the flight at the time and believes it has something to do with the vast globalist conspiracy he has uncovered. As order dissipates around the globe and as many theories are posited as to what happened to those who disappeared, those still remaining look for a world leader who can bring global peace to the chaos.
Production Quality (1 point)
As a late 90s\early 2000s production, the original Left Behind film has many of the marks of this era of filmmaking. Opening credits sequences were common back then, but they weren’t ever justified. The video quality and camera work are fairly well produced. However, action scenes are not filmed or produced very well and include poorly crafted CGI and other special effects. Kirk Cameron provides some slight yet unwanted narration throughout the film. Elsewhere, location subtitles from JAG are awkwardly inserted and the soundtrack is cheap. Finally, the editing is pretty good, but as will be discussed next, there is too much content to cover and not enough continuity. In short, this ‘classic’ Christian film has some good quality, but not enough.
Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)
Based on the blockbuster apocalyptic fiction series by popular authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the original Left Behind film is not without its plot errors. The premise is trumped up, lacking a touch of realism, but this may get a pass since it was based on the international politics of 15+ years ago. The movie is focused on big world-changing issues, but they come off as simplistic and not groundbreaking enough. The creators perhaps took on more than they could handle as many subplots are juggled throughout. While it’s commendable for this early film to take on a new genre in Christian film (apocalyptic), the plot lacks the intrigue necessary to make it great. For example, there are too many slow and melodramatic scenes—the storyline is anti-climactic and contains to many convenient occurrences. The dialogue is full of information dumps that overemphasize apocalyptic elements. This builds empty characters that are swept along by the plot and are thrown together for no particular reason. On a positive note, the climax scene at the end is slightly interesting and well-crafted. But overall, this first installment spends too much time getting ready for the next film and not enough time building the characters and a realistic apocalyptic landscape.
Acting Quality (0 points)
Apocalyptic action movies require dynamic acting, but this cast lacks this quality. Line delivery is stiff and not engaging. Emotions are overdone and too dramatic. Kirk Cameron is a better actor than he is of late, but that’s not saying much. In short, there’s not enough positive here.
Conclusion
This was definitely a groundbreaking Christian film that brought a popular Christian novel series to the big screen. It was a hit, since the Christian market was starved for quality. However, this does not mean it was a great film. It had a lot of good ideas behind it, but not enough quality to back them up. They had an amazing budget for the time, but it seems like it was mostly squandered. Needless to say, the old is just marginally better than the new.
Final Rating: 1.5 out of 10 points
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