Any movie loses steam as it continues...there is nothing exempt from that and sadly Left Behind after two remarkable entries meets that road block with the third installment which really could have been their take off point. When I heard several changes to the production crew including bringing on director Craig Baxley and Sony Pictures coming on board, I was thrilled!! I figured this could change the series into a real contender for a mainstream film series. Baxley, like the other directors from the series has been around a long time but he's best known for his work on Stephen King films such as the brilliantly done Storm of The Century and Rose Red. He could bring exactly the dark twist necessary to the Left Behind series.

The film as part of the trilogy is of course still worth seeing, they just seem to make so many grievous errors. First of all they left the book series practically in the dust when they created this one. Normally I would be okay with that but the first two installments were so closely related to the book that it just doesn't make sense to have this one so far from it. They brought on award winning actor (Emmy, Academy award, Golden Globe etc.) Louis Gossett Jr. and they used him as the star power of the film as though he was HUGE!! The entire film revolved around him and in the process it left the rest of the returning cast in the dust. Kirk Cameron in his role as Buck Williams still continues to improve his role and his acting. This is his best performance yet as Buck, far more believable and starting to look the part. Brad Johnson probably would still do great as Rayford Steele if not for that fact that he's hardly in the film!! Janaya Stephens is great as Chloe and really gets to show off her acting chops when she becomes terminally ill. Cast replacement Arnold Pinnock as Pastor Bruce Barnes is okay but the previous actor was far better. The addition to the main cast Laura Catalano as Rayford's new wife Amanda is great. She looks and seems like she's perfect for the role but again...she too is hardly in it!! The whole film revolves around the President and his attempt to stop World War III.

Gordon Currie returns as the evil head of the Global Community Nicolae Carpathia. Unfortunately the screenplay writers and director forgot some key elements of this. Currie's best performance is that he can perfectly balance evil and his alternate public face. They never use his public side. The public adore this man and yet they make him out to be pure evil right now. They also created him to be indestructible which is wrong!! He's not indestructible, he's flesh and blood and furthermore will be flesh and blood until his assassination much later on. They made him far more supernaturally powerful than he should been. The evangelistic message is still there quite heavily in this installment but not nearly as evident as the others. It was done with far more subtlety. An attempt was made to mainstream the film but to do so I think they changed everything about the series that was great. I also think they made it very hard for themselves to continue this series which could go on for 10 more amazing films!! There is so much content to cover it would be a piece of cake. But because they chose to stray from the original story they made it very hard. I have become a big fan of the original cast and they were the ones who got left behind in this film all in the name of someone they hoped would be recognizable. This installment of the series if definitely far more polished which is great!! The acting has improved a great deal. The budget has remained the same and the story line is a little more complex than the second film. It just wasn't fit together properly. The film jumps from location to location. The characters move around the world in seconds, setting doesn't seem like the important issue but it is!! And despite the fact that World War III is happening in the U.S. we never get to see any of it. We don't get to see the actual war and that is disappointing and unfortunate because that's what this installment is all about!! Some may like this far more than the original films but for me...a fan of the books, and the original films I felt disappointed. I hope someone turns it all around!! 6/10

Left Behind is a great name for these series of films. They should be left behind, in the darkest most inaccessible place on earth. If you pick up a movie at the rental store with the words Kirk Cameron and Left Behind you are about to waist 1 1/2 + hours of your time on a movie that is so boring being in traction with a broken leg is far more exciting and a we bit less painful. I am not sure if the producers were trying to camouflage these films as real drama but what they got was a dramatized religious Sunday school movie. The films are preaching the word of god and trying to put those words in a dialog of a normal dramatic film. What they ended up with was bad acting and an even worse script. Is it bad Directing or a combination of many things? Why was the acting so bad in so many scenes? I seen many of these actors in other films have great or at least above average performances. I actually chose to watch the first Left Behind film from beginning to end and because of a holly roller relative I was forced to watch most of the second and third movies. It's obvious that Kirk Cameron is a very religious person and that's great but if he is going to push his religious beliefs on people through the films he is involved with then those films should be advertised as religious films and not something else.

This movie starts off with the President of the United States, "Gerald Fitzhugh" (Louis Gossett Jr.) sitting at his desk in a bombed out White House lamenting the day he gave up America's sovereignty to "Nicolae Carpathia" (Gordon Currie). The film then backtracks a bit to an assassination attempt upon him which manages to kill the Vice-President, "John Mallory" (Charles Martin Smith). It's at this point that we learn there are two groups who oppose Nicolae Carpathia: (1) The militias who intensely dislike the surrender of America's sovereignty and (2) Christians who refuse to accept the leadership of the anti-Christ. Naturally, Nicolae wants both groups destroyed and he comes up with a plan to discredit the first and another plan to decimate the second. Now, as far as the overall film is concerned I have to say that this turned out to be a major disappointment. Not only does it substantially deviate from the book but the last fourth of the movie was simply too preposterous to be believed. Along with that, I didn't think the movie flowed very smoothly from one scene to the next. That said, if there is going to be a fourth film in this series I would hope that it is made with a view towards reality and Biblical accuracy. Below average.