The thriller movie, “Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist” hit theaters last week with popular actor Kevin Sorbo taking Nicolas Cage’s role as one of the main characters.
The movie is set around six months after millions of people vanished in a Biblical rapture, picking up where the movie “Left Behind,” released in 2014 left off. During this time, those ‘left behind’ (no pun intended) are beginning to return to normal life, or a new normal, even though crime rates have skyrocketed.
When a well-known expert claims that a second wave of vanishings has occurred, Cameron ‘Buck’ Williams, a television reporter, played by Greg Perrow, sets out to prove her wrong, because he neither knows anyone who supposedly vanished the second time, nor anyone who knows anyone who vanished.
Williams’ boss warns him if he looks into the actual cause of the first set of vanishings or the validity of the second vanishings, he could lose his job, but Williams doesn’t care, and he sets out to find the truth.
Williams teams up with hacker friend Dirk Burton, played by Stafford Perry. Together they come across a conspiracy of government officials who are working to create a one world government and take control of the world’s money supply, led by Jonathon Stonagal, played by Neal McDonough.
Meanwhile, Williams’ girlfriend, Chloe Steele, played by Sarah Fisher, and her father, Rayford Steele, played by popular actor Kevin Sorbo, are still recovering from losing their family members in the disappearance (a.k.a. the rapture).
Rayford comes to the conclusion that the vanishing was the Biblical rapture that his wife who vanished often talked about. During the movie, he sets out to find out if this is true, and along the way, he meets Pastor Bruce Barnes, played by Charles Andrew Payne, who wasn’t taken in the rapture, because he never believed what he preached.
Together, they find and provide each other with answers, while Chloe also finds the answers she has been looking for.
The movie updates the storyline from the 2014 Left Behind movie starring Nicolas Cage, which earned more than $30 million worldwide at the box-office. The movie is also an offshoot from the previous three 2000’s Left Behind films.
Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist was worth the watch, but don’t expect it to have as high of a budget as say, the Marvel franchise, or even the first movie in the series starring Cage.
The movie is based on the Left Behind book series, which has sold over 80-million copies and arguably, may be more popular than the movies.
The movie, which is rated PG-13, played at the Tooele UEC theater last week.