Director: Vic Armstrong
Writers: Paul Lalonde, John Patus
Cast: Nicolas Cage
Runtime: 110 mins.
2014
Dear Nicolas Cage,
I write to you as a longtime examiner of your livelihood. I currently hold the unique position of one who has seen your most recent attempt to shrug off crushing debt, Left Behind. I found it mostly to be a movie. That being said, I have a few questions that I believe you, and only you, Nicolas Cage, can answer.
I want to start with something real. Are you a religious man? I know that you were raised Catholic and that you staunchly refuse to comment upon your faith in interviews. I know your brother is a Christian pastor. But what about you? In interviews you suggest that taking this role was not just about the money, that you connected with the script and its themes. If that is really true, why do you sleepwalk through this movie like it's a PSA for fire safety? You're more invested in this library poster.
You look bewildered in the film, like a basement brand Bela Lugosi who has been ripped unceremoniously into C-Movie dreck. Like Mr. Lugosi, you seem to have no idea, or at least no concern, about your plummeting public image. Unlike Mr. Lugosi, you don't have an energetic hack filmmaker superfan who pumps you with a steady stream of work; you have the conservative Christian crowd, who love you for two reasons only, in no particular order:
1. You were in National Treasure.
2. You were a Big Name.
You see, for the conservative Christian crowd, a man like Chad Michael Murray is a movie actor. You my friend, and please do not allow this to flatter you in any way, are a megastar. The conservative Christian filmgoing audience are not used to seeing such mainstream "talent" in their films, and they feel it adds to their media's legitimacy. If Nicolas Cage is in our movie, it must be respectable!
What of it, Nicolas? How much does the Nic Cage seal of approval really mean?
Your movie stinks. Everybody agrees. It holds a steady 2% at Rotten Tomatoes. Even Wikipedia sounds bored as it calls the film "universally panned." Didn't it give you pause that your character's only defining trait is infidelity? Weren't you concerned that he is named Rayford Steele? Did you enjoy filming in Louisiana?
It's shocking how much potential Left Behind wastes. I mean, the books weren't written by Cormac McCarthy or anything, but they're chock full of weird and campy apocalyptic insanity. How is it that this film boils down all that supernatural and political drama into an incredibly basic disaster movie? Sure, the Rapture happens, but the remainder of the movie just cuts back and forth between people civilly running about in a parking lot, and people civilly arguing with each other on an airplane. Thirty-four years after Airplane! put the final nail in the coffin that is the flight deck disaster movie, Left Behind seems to want a revival. Thus what should have been one or two seems in the film adaptation has been stretched to comprise the entire plot.
I don't want to talk about the embarrassingly one-note characters, or the TV commercial cinematography, or the dramatic climax that involves Rayford's daughter climbing into a series of vehicles of ever-increasing size because her dad needs to land a plane (??). It feels wrong to lay this all at Nicolas Cage's feet, when so much fault can be attributed to writer Paul LaLonde (who also penned last decade's Kirk Cameron Left Behind films) and director Vic Armstrong (who is a career stunt coordinator directing his first feature film for some reason--are there even any stunts in this movie?). It's not your fault this movie is stupid, Nic.
But it may be your fault this movie isn't fun.
You're an Academy Award winner, Nicolas. Let me repeat that. You have won an Oscar. You are a man who is infamous for making all sorts of incoherent and nonsensical acting choices to overcompensate for your inherent dourness.
You are a legend of ignorant camp. Where is that manic energy in Left Behind? Where is the sobbing, the screaming, the mugging? Where is the spark of any personality whatsoever, manufactured or no?
Why is your performance neck and neck with everything else for being the worst thing about this movie?
I know you invented something you have called the Nouveau Shamanic acting technique. I never thought I would be saying this, but I would have loved to see you bring some of that Nouveau Shamanic magic to Left Behind, The movie is borderline unwatchable without it. As it stands, Left Behind sinks even below the dubious honor of being considered "camp." Left Behind is merely boring.
That being said, it can't all be bad. Oh how I did love you investigating the personal belongings of those who disappeared like a private eye whose clues are crucifixes and calendar dates blocked off for Bible study.
You dropped the ball. You screwed up. Even so, I want you to promise me something. Don't ever change, Nicolas Cage. Someday we will tell our children about you, and they will be confused.
0 / 5 BLOBS
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