Left Behind: Rise Of The Antichrist

I remember years ago when i was at a movie convention in Stockholm. I met a lot of movie fans from all over the world and we talked about movies, what kind of films we enjoyed and what films we were looking forward to see. At some point we started talking about films that we just didn´t enjoy for some reason. And when it was my turn to pick the film i knew exactly what film i was thinking about, and that film was the 2014 evangelical film known as Left Behind. None of the people i mentioned this film to knew what film i was talking about, and i can at least say im glad they didn´t have to sit through and suffer watching it. For those of you who don´t know the background of this film, there was an original version of this film made back in the year of 2000 simply called Left Behind: The Movie. This film is directed by Vic Sarin and stars Kirk Cameron ( yes it´s that guy from TV series Growing Pains ) and Brad Johnson ( perhaps mostly known from the Danny Glover film Flight Of The Intruder ). I never saw this film when it came out or the two sequels simply because i wasn´t really interested in seeing them. Maybe the terrible DVD cover of the first film didn´t help either, so in 2014 they decided to do a reboot of the first film and this time with some bigger movie stars included such as Nicolas Cage ( Wild Heart, Ghost Rider ), Lea Thompson ( Back To The Future trilogy ) as well as TV series star Cassi Thomson from TV series Big Love ( definetely worth watching ). Left Behind is pretty much a film about what could happen during the end of days. Here it is portrayed that people suddenly vanish out of nowhere, and no one really knows why. It may sound like a very interesting premise for a film, but Left Behind is one hell of a big mess from start to finish. It didn´t matter if Nicolas Cae was the best part of this film since there were so many problems that damaged the film. Everything from bad acting to strange editing made Left Behind such a horrible experience. There was an Indiegogo campaign made to get money for a sequel and it didn´t do well. So it seemed that we would not see a sequel for quite some time, but here we are in 2023 with Left Behind: Rise Of The Antichrist. Not only that, it also seems that this sequel is directed by Hercules himself who is Kevin Sorbo of course. Even if i did not enjoy the 2014 film at all, i decided to give this sequel a chance. Is this the best film in the Left Behind franchise so far, or is it just as bad as i might have expected?

The world is in chaos six months after the Rapture took millions of people, and a new charismatic leader named Nicolae Carpathia ( Bailey Chase ) is gaining prominence. No one really knows what his plans are, if it has something to do that involves the Tribulation, but the world is about to find out.

Before i watched this latest Left Behind film i actually watched the original film from the year 2000 with Kirk Cameron. The film started off pretty cool with planes bombing in Israel and i thought to myself:- A Christian Rambo film? Yeeeaaah. That only lasted for a short moment and the film started to take itself too seriously. Then we went straight to the end of days theme and just another ordinary Christian film. Too bad, because a few scenes were actually fun. So going from the original film and remembering the 2014 film version of Left Behind, where does this latest sequel take us in this franchise? Well, if you have seen the previous films and expect a big change when it comes to quality of film making and acting, i can tell you right now that Left Behind: Rise Of The Antichrist have at least tried to improve since the 2014 film. That does not mean that this film is good in anyway, but there is one detail that i actually think saves from film from falling apart completely. And that we can thank actor Neal McDonough (who had a solid role in the TV series Legends Of Tomorrow  ) who is the best part of this film as the character Jonathan Stonogal. He should have been the lead character and lead actor of this whole film, because he is so good compared to all of the other actors. While other actors try and act as if they are serious and look like they are lost, Neal just steps right in and knock them all out by delivering dialogue in his own uniqe way. Now it´s time for the negative and where do we start? One thing i have noticed with evangelical films is that they make a lot of odd scenes. When we are supposed to take the film seriously they almost do it too much so it almost becomes lifeless. There are references to the pandemic and they also try to throw in several scenes where you are supposed to feel Christian persecution. Honestly it never feels like you feel sorry for some of these characters, so the message is completely lost along the way. The acting in general is just very boring and uninspired and for the most part you wonder if some of the actors really wanted to be there? For a 2 hours long film this feels like a very slow motion picture and you try to keep yourself awake. Kevin Sorbo is at least not absolutely horrible in this film compared to some of the other actors, but even he can´t save this film. Director Kevin Sorbo have tried to make a better sequel to the 2014 film, but there are way too many problems to make this film work. Left Behind: Rise Of The Antichrist is definetely not the worst evangelical film i have seen, and i do think Neal McDonough deserves respect for his role. Other than that this sequel will most likely only be enjoyed by evangelical people, while the rest of us will most likeley forget that this sequel ever existed.

Rating: D