The apocalypse is so lame that survivors wished they had died.
We watched the trilogy. 2000’s Left Behind, 2002’s Left Behind 2: Tribulation Force and 2005’s Left Behind 3: A World at War. These movies were so boring that we often lost concentration and forgot what was going on. I think I know what was the point. I didn’t grow up exposed to Christianity so most of this stuff went over my head. I think the basics are about God has come to take the good people and the bad people need to stop being bad. Immediately you realise the stupidity of this argument. If God already took the good people, then there’s nothing you can do now. If you’re doing something, then you’re assuming that he will do this again. Like maybe his bus was full and he’s making a second trip. So for me, everything after the first five minutes is pretty pointless events. Then there’s all this stuff about devils which I don’t understand the benefits of what he’s doing. Why does he want to control things via other people? Can’t he just do it himself? Is it because of money? What does he need the money for?
Let me point out the plot for each of them. I’m using IMDB and Wikipedia heavily because I probably missed symbolism in something I don’t understand.
Left Behind 1 (2000): The Biblical prophecy of Armageddon begins when the Rapture instantly takes all believers in Christ from the Earth. A reporter left behind learns that the Anti-Christ will soon take power.
Left Behind 2: Tribulation Force (2002): After the Rapture and the revealing of the identity of the Anti-Christ, a group of converts form the Tribulation Force, a secret society with the sole purpose of converting non-believers to Christianity.
Left Behind 3: World at War (2005): The world falls into chaos as Nicolae Carpathia (Anti-Christ) detonates nuclear devices across the globe and stages multiple devastating attacks against both the Tribulation Force and an international militia, led by U.S. President Gerald Fitzhugh.
I’m not religious so I’m looking at the pure logic. The logic of #1 is silly. If the people that believe in Christ are gone, the ones left over don’t believe. So why do there even care about an Anti-Christ? To believe in an Anti-Christ, you would have to believe in Christ. And therefore be taken up in the Armageddon event. There are other stupid events in #1 too. Day turns to night for no reason, then someone is planting crops in a desert, a flight attendant is going to work for the UN for some reason, the head of the UN is the Anti-Christ for some reason, Anti-Christ wants to bankrupt the UN which shows he cares about money, but what would he need to buy if he has super powers? The air hostess that will go to the UN has an affair with a plane Captain called Captain and then he tell her it was wrong and then he asks her to forgive him. What? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? For some reason the Anti-Christ declares seven years of peace. Why? He is in the UN, which means he pretty much doesn’t get involved with anything. He doesn’t have the power to declare anything. Then the Anti-Christ, besides his UN job, has superpowers but also needs money. He doesn’t have an army and isn’t really doing anything bad other than looking like an evil guy and talking about plans but not actually doing anything. So Anti-Christ is useless in driving the plot forward.
Before I talk about #2 and #3, let me point out the main character of the movies. Its our old friend Kirk Cameron from Saving Christmas. That badly made movie which didn’t have a point and was made to fleece his supporters. Yes him. But these are made 10 years before that. In these three movies, he is a reporter and conveniently he goes around asking questions to get exposition of the plot. He doesn’t actually do anything. In #2 he talks about making some team but his job in the team is to do what he always did, ask questions and get exposition. Each of the three movies cost about $4m and make about the same back in revenue. Hardly any marketing, cast are mostly volunteers, sets are shit and distribution is to churches. So most of the money went to Kirk. Probably. I can’t imagine him getting less.
Now #2 is a terrible movie. Nothing much happens. They movie the scene from person to person where they talk about how they feel. What they did in the past and what all of this means to them. The only important plot point is the formation of a team called the ‘Tribulation Force’ where they need to find people that don’t believe in Christ and convince them to believe. Why? Are they expecting a second rapture? What happens in a Rapture anyways? Do they go to a utopia? Has anyone ever been graded on a bell curve? They do know that even if you’re one of the good guys, some people are better than others. Also people can change. People can go bad if they are in a bad environment. So there is massive challenge to the Tribulation Force to convince people to change ‘after-the-fact’. Its like closing your barn doors after the horses have left. Also, what a stupid name. “Tribulation Force”. What force do they have? Force you to change? Praying by gunpoint? And Tribulation. This is defined as “noun – a cause of great trouble or suffering.” It sounds like the team are intentionally doing bad things. To someone that doesn’t know any of this Christ stuff, if they came to me and said they were a Force called Tribulation and they wanted me to convert from whatever to Christianity, I would probably think they are the bad guys and tell them to fuck off. They didn’t have guns or other weapons. They actually looked quite dopey. Kirk, a plane pilot, an air-hostess and a priest were the team. Not exactly a convincing bunch.
By the way, the bad guy, Anti-Christ, is called Nicolae Carpathian is has a strange Russian accent in some scenes and in others he sounds American.
#3. Oh boy. What a shit-show. It starts off with the president recalling the events of #1 and #2 and saying that Anti-Christ has detonated nuclear bombs around the globe and he has a military force to do something. I don’t what they would do because the the bombs are already blown up, all you can do now is save some survivors and fix the environment from more hazardous materials. So, the president is Louis Gossett Jr. A solid actor. He has two scenes, starting and ending exposition. The president is in the white house which is on a computer generated fire. The logical questions I ask were, why wasn’t he evacuated? Why are there no other bodies? Where is everyone? How did a blast not hurt or scratch him? How was Kirk able to walk in the white house and talk to him without being stopped or killed or hurt? The survivors of the nuke blasts are all sick and somehow drinking blessed wine cure them of their unidentified ailments. Then in the end, The president talks to Anti-Christ and an asteroid hit and kill them both in a CGI blast. Before the credits come, Anti-Christ walks out from a fire like Terminator 2. So all of these three movies were for nothing. They solved nothing. Anti-Christ is still around and Rapture number two didn’t come. The people that remained on earth after events of #1 could have carried on with their lives and would not have been different. This third movie was also distributed by Sony and they probably paid to get Loud
These three are the worst movies ever made. Nothing has any consequence and it doesn’t conclude. My guess is that it made by religious people to show to religious people to make them think something deep and meaningful is happening. This will instill fear in them so that they keep doing church things. Also, Kirk makes money from this.
Do not watch this manipulative shit.