Has the internet abandoned it’s king? The danger of royalty has always been that one king is as good as another. The king is dead! Long Live the king! Or perhaps Nicolas Cage has just made a bad career decision by switching from doing the devil’s work to shilling for the lord. Yes, Cage, most recently known for reveling in Hell’s fiery embrace as Ghost Rider, coming back from Hell in Drive Angry and sending a whole slew of deserving souls to Hell in Rage, has taken a turn at God’s side with Left Behind. He might have scored points on high, but at Rotten Tomatoes he’s riding at a dismal 2%.
Not only has the effortless meme king put out one of the most horrendously reviewed movies in the last few years, he’s failed to spawn even a single meme. Memes are the jewel’s that decorate the internet’s crown. There was a time when Nic Cage’s latest trailers spawned memes. He has inspired animated videos about cake, brilliant follicle refutations of arguments in forums across the world and the planet’s most emphatic negative statement about bees. In Session Film is running a poll asking the internet whether Nic should throw the towel in. At time of writing the poll was in favor of him keeping his job, but perhaps being more discerning in his roles. It’s still easy to see the internet sharpening their knives for a serious take down.
Just check out these choice picks from reviews of Left Behind:
The tantalizing prospect that this could have been a camp set-up of the Snakes on a Plane or Sharknado ilk pops up as Left Behind starts to echo 1970s flight deck-driven disaster films — and the parodies that followed. No such luck. Armstrong appears humourlessly earnest about his task. Score one for Satan.
This execrable reboot of the film series — no critical darling itself — is based on the bestselling, faith-based novels. It’s a shoo-in to clean up at the next Razzie Awards.
The movie also has the distinction of featuring perhaps the worst big-screen performance by an Academy Award winner: Nicolas Cage. To say he sleepwalks through this one would be an insult to sleepwalkers.
“What is this fucking music?” is the very first thing I wrote in my notebook while watching Left Behind. Two pages later, I wrote again, “No, seriously, what is this fucking music?” Indiscriminately scored to what appears to be the soundtrack from an ’80s infomercial, and directed with all the nuance that suggests, the early scenes of Left Behind quickly cement its place in the Bad Movie Hall of Fame. But it’s the later scenes, when the plot becomes thoroughly unhinged, that the movie enters another plane altogether. Adapted from Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s best-selling evangelical novels about the end times, Left Behind is biblical in its silliness.
In fact, despite a larger budget and the presence of at least one honest-to-goodness movie star, Nicolas Cage, this may be one of the most inept films to ever see a wide theatrical release courtesy of pay-for-play distributor Freestyle Releasing (God’s Not Dead, The Identical).
There are millions of Christians with average or above-average intelligence. I’d like to think that I’m one of them. So, what possessed the makers of “Left Behind” to produce such an ignorant piece of garbage that’s easily one of the worst films of 2014, if not all-time? And, Nicholas Cage? We know he loves his paycheck, but did he even read the script before signing on to this disaster? Woe unto those who buy a ticket.
It looks like not even Christian reviewers are willing to swallow this reheated bait. What do you think? Is Nic Cage on a road to being right with God, but at odds with his audience? Should he go back to demonic meltdowns and gun filled nuttiness? Is it time for him to blow us all away with another Oscar-worthy dramatic role?
