Bad acting, cheesy effects doom faith-based 'Left Behind'

Based on Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' apocalyptic thriller about the end of the world - a 1995 best-seller that spawned a book series and three film adaptations - "Left Behind" centers on what's known, in some Christian circles, as the Rapture. According to this belief, the End Times will be heralded by the bodily assumption of righteous Christians into heaven, followed by a period of pestilence, war, famine and death for those left behind.

This, in a nut shell, is the premise of "Left Behind," a $16 million reboot by writer-producer Paul Lalonde of his 2000 straight-to-video adaptation of the first LaHaye/Jenkins book. Kirk Cameron of "Growing Pains" provided the low-wattage star power for that first film. Nicolas Cage is the new headliner, playing Ray Steele, the captain of an airliner whose co-pilot has inexplicably gone missing in midflight, along with a stewardess and several passengers. It's "Airport 2014."

I wish I could say that the upgrade is a good thing.

Cage, an actor who normally can be relied upon to provide a modicum of entertainment, even in - maybe especially in - his worst movies, delivers what surely will be remembered as one of the lowest-energy performances of his career. It's tempting to call "Left Behind" a wake-up call to heathens, except that it is, simply put, an exercise in tedium.

The film is amateurish on almost every level.

With the exception of Cage, who is outacted by his 1970s-style sideburns, the cast is characterized by histrionics. Jordin Sparks is particularly awful as a distraught passenger whose daughter has disappeared. The dialogue is lame. The antique-looking special effects, mostly featuring flying shards of broken glass, evoke an old episode of "CHiPs." The editing is choppy, jumping back and forth, without logic, from the people on the plane to the plight of Ray's atheist daughter (Cassi Thomson) back on the ground, where she seems to have misplaced her mother (Lea Thompson) and her little brother (Major Dodson).

The music sounds like it was recorded in a casino elevator. Make that three separate casino elevators. It ranges from plinking lounge music to swelling strings to pounding outtakes from a made-for-TV disaster flick.

To the movie's credit, the shots of the plane - hurtling through the night sky with a plume of fire trailing from the wing after a collision with an unpiloted jet - are visually striking.

I have nothing against the premise of the film. But if you're going to make a movie about Christian eschatology that shoots for the mainstream, at least make it frightening, if you can't make it fun.

"Left Behind" takes the end of the world and turns it not into a nightmare, but a nice long nap.