It's Best to Approach This As A Work Of Fiction

I've been a Christian for nearly fifty years, and as I do not happen to believe in the pre-tribulation Rapture, approaching this movie as a work of fiction seemed wise. And as it turned out, I must say I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

As storytelling goes, it isn't half bad, and the acting is serviceable and even touches the heart or chills the bones at times.

By now even those who have never seen it (and wouldn't if you paid them) probably know the basic plot: the Rapture, which is basically the sudden disappearance from the face of the earth of everyone who was "right with God" (meaning of course the sort of Christian who reads the Bible as if it were a "Dick and Jane" reading primer), leaving behind friends and loved ones to muddle about in confusion until they figure
it out for themselves.

The principle players are reporter Buck Williams (Kirk Cameron), airline pilot Rayford Steele (Brad Johnson), Steele's daughter Chloe (Janaya Stephens), and the Reverend Bruce Barnes (Clarence Gilyard), the obligatory minister who finds himself "left behind" and thus forced to face up to his inadequacies as a man of God.

There's nothing inspired in the casting; the characters are stock and the actors inhabit them surprisingly well, Johnson especially (his grief when he comes home and discovers that his wife and son are among those taken is one of the more genuine moments in the whole picture).

Since this is taken from the novel by Tim LaHaye, a proponent of the pre-tribulation Rapture, we all know what comes next: the tribulation and the rise of the Antichrist. It's all muddled up with a man in Israel attempting to combat world hunger and the move towards a single world currency (which is never explained; Christians who follow this
theology have this particular theory about money but how it ties in to the return of Christ they can never really satisfactorily say).

In addition, the nations of the world are declaring peace, which is a good thing, right? Not on your life. It takes a while to find it out but what this world peace really means is that there is no God so no need for any of the religions of the world.

The United Nations takes a real beating in this movie; it is painfully obvious that the people who wrote this thing suffer from a xenophobia so deeply ingrained that anyone who does not look, speak, walk, or think as they do is at the very least suspicious and probably headed for the lake of fire.

As for the Antichrist, this is where the movie slips, and slips badly. He arrives in the form of Nicolae Carpathia (Gordon Currie), a rather blank-faced man with a pronounced Russian accent. (Well of COURSE it would be Russian; remember those damn Commies??) The scenes in which Currie appears are the silliest ones in the film and frankly he comes across as comic relief most of the time.

The film doesn't really end; the credits just roll. Two more films followed this one and they're all fun to watch if you do not take them too seriously.

Haven't seen the remake yet (Good God, Nicolas Cage must have been desperate for money), but I'll review it when I do.



Oh God. There's nothing more inconvenient than an old queen with a head cold!