User reviews

The film is pretty straight forward. Not well written. And much of the acting is pretty bad. The better actors are the top billed: Nick Cage and the guy from One Tree Hill. Many of the actors on the plane were terrible. The blonde flight attendant wasn't bad although she seems to be kinda unknown. Jordan Sparks should stick to singing.

With all that being said, this is a niche film for a certain audience (Christians). I'm not sure why atheists and agnostics would watch it and then be totally annoyed or angered by it because of its Christian themes. The film is about the Christian Rapture. And I'm sure most people knew that before watching.

The problem with 90% of the reviews here are that they are biased. Their reviews aren't based on how bad the film is, but instead on their disagreement with the religious ideology behind the film, and their rejection of Christianity. In other words, they're reviewing Christianity instead of the film. But in terms of quality, this film is on par with Sharknado. And this does not deserve the title of Nick Cage's worst film. That prestigious distinction still goes to The Wicker Man.

"Left Behind" is about the Steele family. Mother Irene becomes very deeply religious and active in church in recent years. Unfortunately, this caused spirited daughter Chloe, as well as her pilot husband Ray, to drift apart from her. When Chloe comes home to surprise her father for his birthday, he was called to fly a plane from New York to London, among his other ulterior motives. That same day, a distressing event occurs where millions of people simultaneously suddenly disappear, leaving their clothes and things behind. Those people left behind scramble to make sense of what happens, as Ray struggles to land his damaged plane safely back to New York.

Academy Award winner Nicholas Cage once again majorly disappoints with his hammy and florid performance in this film as Ray here. He had a moment in the end where some genuine emotion came through, but it felt too late and too brief. It was good to see '80s sweetheart Lea Thompson back on the big screen again as Irene, but she was barely there. Cassi Thompson did her best to carry the film on the ground as Chloe, but her efforts were negated by the lines she was made to say and the stunts she was made to do.

When the passengers were boarding the plane, I felt like I was watching a cheesy episode of the "Love Boat". Of course, there was going to be a sexy and flirtatious stewardess Hattie (Nicki Whelan). There was a hotshot TV journalist Buck Williams (so this is what Chad Michael Murray is up to nowadays), a Moslem guy, an angry midget guy, a sleazy businessman, a nerdy Asian (!) conspiracy theorist, a nervous drug addict lady, an even more nervous gun-toting mother (Why did you accept this role, Jordin Sparks?). I guess you can see the chaotic over-the-top acting circus.

In fact, this whole film had an 70s-80s TV movie look and feel about it. Even the opening credits looked from that era. If "The Remaining" had a horror approach to depicting the Rapture, "Left Behind" played like a bad B-action film, down to its fiery, explosive, down-the-wire, narrow- escape type finale.

The Christian agenda was obvious from the start, and I did not mind that. In fact, I was looking forward to seeing how they would tie it into the story. However, even as a Christian film, I felt this film did not do its job well at all. Oddly, it made Christians appear unnaturally nutty or weird. Worst of all, its evangelical message was lost in the confusion and the cheese. 2/10.

This movie was simply AWFUL. Really, really bad. And to those who are going to argue that the reason why this movie is rated so low is because people are becoming "anti- Christian", NO. The acting was terrible, the script was horrendous, seriously. A group of high school kids in drama club could do better. It was deathly boring, i thought I was in there for more than three hours.

Worst of all is the message its trying to send. Isn't it curious that the movie tried so hard to portray all of those that were left as bad messed up people? So is that supposed to mean that those who don't believe in the Christian God are all either cheaters, flirts, gamblers, thieves, drug addicts and just generally messed up? Because that's what I saw. Don't think I wouldn't catch that. I get that its a Christian movie but its still a pretty offensive way of showing off your faith.

Even in the Philippines, which is predominantly made up of believers, people in the theatre couldn't help but laugh at how absolutely ridiculous everything was. Worst movie EVER

Was it the money? Did he owe someone a favour? Cage why are you in this terrible movie ? Left Behind is even worse than the Kirk Cameron version ,which also sucked. The book I am sure is better, since many have read it. This movie is a career killer ...it is sad to see Cage left behind by Hollywood. The acting is bad , Cage tries hard to make work out of a script that was seemingly penned by 8 year old's . I mean the dialogue is terrible. Why waste your money making a film that is just bad. Cage needs to really rethink his career . Honestly I felt ashamed for Nick . Wild at Heart , Leaving Las Vegas, and Oscar winner... My God man have you no self respect? Nick you are better than this.

Its about a bizarre disappearance of millions of people.

Oh no, wait, it's about Nicolas Cage landing a plane.

Meh.

This movie epitomizes the problem with religion in general.

It starts with a conclusion, so it's tediously predictable & boring boring boring, strictly by-the-numbers fluff for the easily entertained.

As demonstrated the featured review, the only people who will like this dog are those who take a creepy satisfaction in their belief that they alone will get sucked up to heaven while everybody else fries in hell.

As a result, it's aimed at a narrow audience of knee-jerk true believers who would like it no matter how awful it is.

And this was awful, folks. The script falls so flat I even lost my taste for popcorn. Even my daughter, who wanted to see it, got bored pretty quickly.

So when some other people walked out, we 'left behind' them.

Do not sit through this.

You hope it becomes better, but it never does.

There is no actual plot or ending. If you are in it for Nicholas Cage or airplanes, it will assault all you know of them.

This is my first review, I had to get an account to verbalize how horrible this was, it just leaves you grasping at straws why you watched this and anything good there was in the movie is not enough when you reach the end.

I have no idea why we continued to watch, it was insulting and base when it came to the end. The beginning starts with the lead female getting to up in Christian grills. It was a bit unnecessary, but it serves as a HA! Told you so moment at the end when it turned out that this was a rapture film. Which is not bad, but there is just nothing to it. The lead females role is grating and irritating by most peoples standard, she did not have to be a Christian basher for this to be apparent.

H O R R I B L E

Once again I was deceived by the trailers as they made this movie look absolutely amazing; however, the trailers were the only good things that came out of this movie, and that says a lot.

First of all, we have the common Christian movie stereotype where some of a family is for God, and some of it is against God. Than we are provided with the frequent misunderstandings non-Christians face regarding the meaning of scripture due to Christians who have almost 0 theological education. So because the Christians fail to provide an adequate answer, the non-Christian lashes out. At least provide the audience with some level of complexity if you're going to have some kind of a theological debate. Your audience understands more than you think. Now if we could simply ignore the horrendous script not to mention the awful acting, we still have a movie full of stereotypes regarding non-Christians, Christians, Muslisms and even smaller people (just trying to be politically correct) which got old very fast.

But believe it or not, this is not even the worst part of the movie! The worst part is the terrible background music! To put it bluntly, it was GARBAGE!! It was so floaty and totally ruined the atmosphere. Now don't get me wrong, some movies require floaty music, but it would have made more sense to have music that was thematically apocalyptic. For example, Armageddon, Independence Day, or World War Z each had excellent pieces which blend perfectly into the atmosphere of the movie. The fact is even if the script to a movie is mediocre, having an excellent soundtrack can drastically improve the atmosphere. With a corny 80's saxaphone piece playing in the background, or cheesy orchestral music, which sounded digital, my wife and I walked out of the movie going "what did we just see?"

Though I am a pastor, I was hoping to be raptured during the movie. Do what I should have done and save your money by not seeing this film.

This film is so banal it takes the banality out of The Banal. The premise is absurd. The unravelling of the plot is absurd. The performances are, at best, distracted as is the direction. Even the actors seem unconvinced. I'm still kicking myself for watching this film. Sin and purity are depicted with juvenile simplicity. Religious bias is arrogantly displayed (but I'll leave that to the unfortunate viewer to spot). Complex ideas like forgiveness, atonement and judgement are reduced to idiocy at an atomic level. I apologise if this sounds too much like a rant but for someone who watches well over 15 films a week, I have never subjected myself to anything this offensive (to the senses) in over 25 years.

This was the worst movie I have ever seen. It is clearly destined to go straight to day time television. From the start the movies direction, plot, acting and music all give the impression of a day time drama but much much worse.

I don't hate the premise of the movie, it's just like any other sci-fi fiction. However, this movie with it's bad acting and direction make it a complete and utter flop. Too much emphasis is placed on the religious aspects of this story making it feel like a veritable propaganda flick, ruining all chances of immersing in the story-line.

Do not waste your money on such a poorly produced movie. Religious or not, you will walk out of the theatre with nothing but regrets.

It's the story of the rapture from the New Testament. Now I'm not religious but I have read parts of the Bible. There are some good stories in there and this is one of them.

When I started watching this, I expected it to preach to me, but that never happened.

In the end, the moral for me was "don't lie."

I don't know why so many people didn't like it. Reading all the one star reviews was like watching a mob attacking a victim. I was thinking: are you forming your own opinion or just following the herd?

I came across the "Left Behind" novel in a Target store and stood by the bookcases speed-reading it for about an hour. (I.e., I never actually bought the book, which is probably why I was not taken in the rapture.)

Although I am utterly non-religious, the story was mildly gripping, as is this film. Cage did a creditable job, as did most of the cast. If you're looking for a reasonably good disaster movie (where God provides the disaster), this is not a bad time-waster.

The movie was almost universally panned by critics, but I'd bet the overwhelming majority of them are not only non-religious, but actively anti-religion. If this movie had been made in the 1950s or 60s, I suspect it would have done quite a bit better at the box office, along with the Charlton Heston and Victor Mature biblical epics.

Shockingly horrible movie. I can't imagine anybody being able to sit through it except for morbid curiosity. Poor Nicholas Cage - must have fallen on hard times to agree to acting in this disaster of a show. Acting is terrible, effects are cutting edge (if this movie had been made in the 1950s), lines are cheesy, plot is crap. What more can I say? Save yourself 1 hr and 40 mins of pain and cringing (or however long you can tolerate this train wreck of a production). Buy this move and save it as a punishment for your grounded kids if they use the Lord's name in vain or *gasp, God forbid* indulge in premarital sex. Make them watch it back to back 3 times and they will behave.

I only wanted to see this movie because I love the series "The Leftovers", this movie has the same theme and from the beginning it is clear it's a rippoff. It is clear that the amount of money Cage is in dept in, is so large, he literally takes on every B or C movie they make, he is even worse then Seagal. The acting, the story, the directing, it is pretty bad, I guess all the money went to Cage. For a really good disappearance story, you really have to watch The Leftovers.

worse movie ever ... i can't believe i actually fall for the trailer.

i'm an atheist, and all i was think about on my way home was i just wasted my last 2 hours for being lecture about how important to believe in Christ ?

wow i'm impressed... no really mr. Armstrong did u really think that u can make it happen by making this horrible movie?

that was full of predictable scenes and ridiculous religious conversation.

i'm shocked that nicolas cage agreed to act in it.

anyway this movie made me and my boyfriend laugh. :)

Actually the worst movie I have ever experienced. Do not waste your life on this truly awful film... The only spoiler.....DONT DO IT

Other than that. I enjoyed it.

BTW - I'm starting to realize that most of my favorite movies are below 7/10 on IMDB. Don't deny yourself a potentially amazing movie experience because of a number :-) PS- Clap alongs never work. #BanClapAlongs.

The worst part of this movie was the poor devout Muslim man who believes in THE SAME GOD as the Christians who were "saved" through evaporation who gets left behind because he is brown. Anyway, this movie was absolute cancer. Don't waste your time with this Jesus propaganda. Make America Great Again by never watching this disgrace to cinema and aviation. Jordin Sparks' career deserved better.

I watched this out of pure boredness, just to pass the time. Sure, it's not that great - still better than Episode VII- but it's definitely not a one star movie, I would give it a solid 5 out of 7. It doesn't get annoying with religious stuff, I'm an atheist and found it very bearable. It's just a very mediocre film without much of a story but it's watchable if there really is nothing else to watch.

**Spoilers**

Now obviously everyone has reviewed this saying how terrible it is. So I thought I would start picking holes in the aviation side of things. In no particular order (and ones i can remember)

1. Captain leaving the flight deck without really talking to the F/O, no handover of control.

2. Captain returns to the flight deck using emergency flight deck access code. This does not unlock the door immediately.

3. Why is the aircraft in an unusual attitude? At that altitude the aircraft would be on autopilot, not manual flight. So without either pilot on the flightdeck it would continue straight and level and the current speed until the fuel ran out.

4. Non-Standard unusual attitude recovery (disregarding the fact it wouldn't get into one)

5. TCAS with the other aircraft. Capt failed to follow the TCAS resolution advisory which would have guaranteed minimum separation between the 2 aircraft.

6. With that substitutional damage on the aircraft wing there would be an incredible amount of airframe vibration.

7. wing was damaged, why does he lose elevator control?

8. At point of divert JFK would not be the best airport to divert too. The great circle route between JFK and London would take you up the coast of Canada then passing just south of greenland. Most likely airport which could take an aircraft at that size would likely be Gander or similar.

9. Changing aircraft type throughout the film.

10. A lot of none-standard Radio Transmissions 10.1 using names on RT 10.2 Maydays are initiated by saying mayday 3 times 10.3 after declaring a mayday your normal callsign is preceded by mayday 10.4 all radio communication involves your callsign to identify who is talking and who you are talking too. 10.5 all attempts to contact were on VHF radio, no attempt made on HF? 10.6 while trying to make mayday he was selected on 121.9 (not a standard oceanic frequency) and while changing the dial he never actually made it active frequency so was always transmitting on 121.9 10.7 if you failed to contact anyone on a atc frequency a pilot would likely try 121.5 (guard) or 123.45 (aircraft to aircraft)

11. Failure of flight controls would make the autopilot unusable. However he seems to continue using it (though seemingly from other parts of the film there is no continuity regarding the autopilot)

12. Fuel situation, at the start of the flight the Capt says it will be a 6.5 hour flight, taking into account reserves and alternate fuel it is likely to be a conservative fuel for about 8.5-9 hours. However, he has a major fuel leak at the 3 hour mark which would probably cost him more than any reserves he had yet they somehow manage to fly 3 hours return back to JFK.

13. Sat phone problem (not strictly aviation but bear with me). Continually failing to contact on sat phone is a problem, but there is another service provided by Stockholm radio (HF, so would work in the middle of the Atlantic) which allows you to call a any phone in the world.

14. Ups the cabin altitude to force people to put on masks, this is possible but wouldn't happen as quickly as shown.

15.claims to be flying a 400 tonne aircraft. seems very heavy for aircraft shown in the film. (for reference, Max Takeof weights for A330: 242 tonnes: B757 255 tonnes: B777: 380 tonnes)

16. landing a "400 tonne" aircraft without flaps, spoilers, etc. is not possible, would be looking at at least 2-3miles minimum

17. Wing magically repairs itself

18. with no engines you would have no hydraulic pressure, would have to be a manual gear extension which he didn't do

19. wouldn't be able to lift the wing again once on the ground. it wouldn't provide enough lifting moment

20. evacuating the pane. as soon the door opened the slide would inflate. wouldn't have to push it out afterwards.

21. aircraft evacuation slides are very hard and don't give you any bounce as demonstrated when the guy was kicked off the plane.

22. very low quota of cabin crew for the size of the aircraft. rule is 1 per 50 passengers minimum.

23. when evacuation is undertaken, general rule is get away from the aircraft. not mill about near the burning wreckage.

Overall this film was terrible. I am sure i missed a few holes in the aviation side too but this made it slightly more amusing for me while watching.

Source of knowledge about the holes in the aviation parts, I am a commercial Pilot.