Left Behind: The End Begins - A Review of Hollywood's Lastest Reboot of an End Times Classic

4 October 2014: Later today I will be posting a review of the just released and rebooted Left Behind: The End Begins. This movie is a big-budget ($18 million total outlay) Stoney Lake Entertainment and Cloud Ten co-production about the Harpazo and its incomprehensible aftermath based upon the highly acclaimed and best-selling 12-novel series of books authored by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. The original Left Behind series of book was published in 32 languages totaling 62 million copies. In a departure from the original movie screenplay the role of Nicolae Carpathia (the Antichrist) has been dropped from this initial reboot. However, this omission is an instant bell-ringer that a sequel will be forthcoming. In a little further digging it has been confirmed that according to Paul LaLonde two additional Left Behind reboot sequels are currently planned with the second approved for production prior to last evening's opening screening in 1,700 theaters across the USA.

In the past couple of weeks or so I began to notice via increasing numbers of Email submissions and not-fit-to-publish comments to this Eschatology Today blog that the secular, un-saved natives as well as the hard-core Harpazo-denying allegedly Christian elements and other assorted Pre-70th Week Rapture scoffers within this society were becoming increasingly restless and irritable. Why the sudden and virulent anti-Harpazo sentiment, so I wondered. Then I stumbled upon the fact that Google and other search-engine queries were keying on keywords related to specific Christian themes such as rapture, harpazo, end times, tribulation, et cetera.  That's when I discovered through the web that this rebooted Left Behind movie was to be released on the eve of Yom Kippur 2014. So all of the nay-saying and anti-Harpazo rubbish that has appeared in my inbox of late is certainly due to the increasingly frayed nerves of those who are so intent on denying what the Lord has promised to His faithful Bride-to-be (John 14:3; Matthew 24:30-31). This movie is apparently the primary cause for the irrelevant yet preemptive angst being manifested by the deniers and the un-saved critics.

Review

Now that I have seen Left Behind: The End Begins I have to say right off the bat that the overall production quality was fairly good, even though the sets were limited to the same commercial aircraft sound stage set that was used in the TV series Lost and some on-location filming in the New York City metropolitan region. One shortcoming I found was the lack of any truly significant depiction of the global nature of the Harpazo. The global aspect is mentioned a couple of times very briefly, but perhaps that's a theme for most robust treatment in the obviously planned sequels. This movie deals almost exclusively with about 7 hours of time on the unknown day and hour when the Harpazo occurs: one hour prior, and six hours of the immediate aftermath.

This screenplay version of Left Behind is first and foremost a Christian family movie. Family is without question the central theme with the central characters of the Steele family clearly Spiritually divided between the born-again mother (Irene Steele/Lea Thompson) and the unsaved father (Rayford Steele/Nichols Cage) and daughter (Chloe Steele/Cassi Thomson). A young son (Raymie Steele/Major Dodson) is clearly under the age of accountability and is caught up in the Harpazo as are all other children on the face of the Earth. The instantaneous disappearance of millions of children plays as hard as the Steele family on the verge of break-up due to the dynamic between the saved Bride of Christ wife and unsaved, philandering husband.

The movie delivers big time on the inevitability of the Harpazo occurring, but leaves the necessity of one's salvation in Jesus Christ as the irreplaceable ticket for admittance not fully explored. A pair of tickets for father and daughter to an event missed are symbolically presented in the film - most, particularly the unsaved, will likely miss this visual simile altogether. However, the point is made when "John 3:16" is found inscribed on the face of the missing co-pilots wristwatch, or Irene Steele's personal Bible and the list of those loved ones whose salvation she prays for is found tucked inside. One very poignant moment also occurs when the pastor (Pastor Barnes/Lance Nichols) of the Steele family's church is found grief stricken with remorse in a church sanctuary pew. While Pastor Barnes knew the Bible's Divine and inerrant words forwards and backwards and preached them from the pulpit every week, he did not truly believe them in his heart, and accordingly he had never received Jesus or the Holy Spirit; he suddenly found himself left behind.

The focus with this first reboot installment of the Left Behind series is the imperative of getting your family one with God before this inevitable day and hour arrives. Everything else will be dealt with in the aftermath as the sequels will ultimately have to deal with them as the 70th Week progresses. This movie is not about the end of the world as we know it, but the beginning of the end of the world as we knew it from the Lord's prophetic word.

Take one or more of your loved ones to see Left Behind as soon as possible!

I conclude this post with Pastor John Hagee's timely sermon.