FEW movies are so abysmal that they score 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, but that’s what happened when Left Behind, featuring Nicholas Cage hit cinema screens in 2014.
Despite being universally panned by critics—with the exception of those who lavished praise on it in Christian publications—it did manage to gross $27-million against its $16 million production budget.
This tells me that those who flock to see faith-based movies have fewer brain cells than teeth.
In the year it was spawned, Gary Goldstein, writing for The Lost Angeles Times said:
This execrable reboot of the film series … is based on the bestselling, faith-based novels. It’s a shoo-in to clean up at the next Razzie Awards.
The movie also has the distinction of featuring perhaps the worst big-screen performance by an Academy Award winner: Nicolas Cage. To say he sleepwalks through this one would be an insult to sleepwalkers.
‘Left Behind’ is also an insult to anyone hoping for any sort of credible theological discussion.
On the other hand Christian review site MovieGuide gave it four stars, saying that this turkey has:
A very strong Christian, biblical worldview for those who look for a pre-tribulation rapture of the church with references and quotes of Scripture, prayer and a clear message that Jesus is the only way.
When I learned today that a sequel has just been unleashed by Amcomri Entertainment Inc I was itching to see what critics made of the studio’s latest offering. All I find was the savage video below and a couple more like it.
More interesting was a report in The Christian Post that revealed that one of the actors—comedian Charles Andrew Payne, who plays a pastor struggling with his faith—had grown up a Catholic but abandoned church.
Negative church experiences drove Payne away. Screenshot via IMDb.
In an interview with the CP‘s Nicole Alcindor, Payne said:
The first book I learned how to read was the Bible. But, as I got older, I will freely admit that I found areas that I couldn’t fully buy into.
Did I have spiritual leaders in the Church that I saw were not necessarily walking the walk based on what they were preaching? Yes. And this kind of made me a little bit disillusioned. So, I stepped away from the Church, but not from my relationship with God.
Payne said the churches he experienced were overly focused on material things and not spirituality.
Specifically, church leaders that focus on constantly raising funds or reminding people to tithe or trying to make them feel guilty for not tithing enough, etc, I found that a bit problematic. You don’t know everyone’s situation, and it looks bad optically when you are always asking for more funds, and then after church, you drive away in your Mercedes.
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