As most people do, I receive a lot of spam in my
email. One day, while attempting to
clean out my inbox, I ran across this advertisement from New Release Tuesday, a
Christian music website. As soon as I
saw this it made me very angry. There is
a lot a bad sentiment implied here; it is also misleading, and
exploitative. A little harsh, you say? I
shall explain why I think this is an exploitative film and why you should not
go see Left Behind with Nicolas Cage. First, I shall describe the bad
sentiment behind this ad.
As most people do, I receive a lot of spam in my
email. One day, while attempting to
clean out my inbox, I ran across this advertisement from New Release Tuesday, a
Christian music website. As soon as I
saw this it made me very angry. There is
a lot a bad sentiment implied here; it is also misleading, and
exploitative. A little harsh, you say? I
shall explain why I think this is an exploitative film and why you should not
go see Left Behind with Nicolas Cage. First, I shall describe the bad
sentiment behind this ad.
There has
been a long history of bad blood between Hollywood and conservative
Christians. Robert K. Johnston gives a
very good account of this in his book Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film
in Dialogue. It begins, strangely
enough, with Cecil B. DeMille. Today,
DeMille’s movie The Ten Commandments (1956) is generally held in high
regard as the ultimate example of what a religious movie should be. It details the life of Moses, from growing up
in the Egyptian royal house to leading the Israelites triumphantly into the
Promised Land. It depicts God as a real
entity and Moses coming to trust in the Lord after wrestling with Modern philosophical
concerns about him. ABC still broadcasts
the film on television every Easter (or Passover, depending on your point of
view), and has done so for so long it has become an unbreakable tradition. Despite the fact that nearly the entire first
half of the movie has no basis in the Biblical story, or that—in an opening
sequence often deleted for time on television—DeMille comes out from behind the
curtain to say this movie is an explicit metaphor of the Cold War,[1] the
general opinion amongst Christians is that this classic movie is a highly accurate
representation of the Genesis tale. My
pastor once told the story in one of his sermons how his parents, who were the
conservative types that shunned all motion pictures, made the exception to see
DeMille’s spectacle in the theater.
But what few
people know is that this was DeMille’s second movie bearing the title The
Ten Commandments. In 1923, he
produced a film with that moniker, but it was not a sword and sandal epic. It was of the genre which he basically
invented and was first famous, or more precisely, infamous.
Based
on the rationalization that indiscretion could be presented on the screen as
long as the sin was eventually corrected, his spectacles were little more than
glorified melodramas that included an effective combination of debauchery and
piety. They were, however, hits with the public. In The Ten Commandments
(1923), which was produced for the then-astronomical figure of one-and-a-half
million dollars, DeMille housed his portrayals of orgies within a larger moral
framework of the giving of the Law (Johnston, 44).[2]
It was objections to Demille’s graphic portrayal of sinful
behavior which prompted groups like
The Catholic Church to form the Legion of Decency to start
boycotting movies they felt were objectionable.[3] In response, the film industry instituted the
first Production Code in 1930.[4] Our
modern ratings system is the ideological descendant of this Code.
Boycotting
films is a tactic which did not cease in the early part of the former
century. More recently, films like
Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Kevin Smith’s Dogma
have seen opening nights surrounded by picket signs.[5] All of this goes to show that the
relationship between Hollywood and the conservative church has always been
uneasy at best.
Things have changed in the last ten
years or so with the rise of the faith based family film. The unexpected and overwhelming success of
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ demonstrated that there is a
demand for religious based fare in the movie marketplace. The website Box Office Mojo has compiled a
list of the top 100 Christian movies released in the last twenty years, the
majority of which have been release in the wake of Gibson’s Passion. The
total gross of these movies is over $1.5 billion.[6] Left Behind (2014) is the most recent
addition to this genre, and is typical to most of those movies made in that
time period in terms of its modest budget and independent production values. They are a far cry from the massive Biblical
epics of the 50’s like The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and Quo
Vadis. And here is where I take issue with what is implied in the
advertisement for Left Behind.
It seems to me that when it is
said, “Show your support for Christian based films and see the movie now,” the
implied meaning is “Show Hollywood they need to make more Christian movies like
this.” If that is the case and you, dear
reader, run out to see Nicholas Cage in Left Behind in hopes that
Hollywood executives in the major studios will start throwing big bucks at
Christian morality tales, you will be sorely disappointed. It is very unlikely that we will see the
return of the big Christian Biblical epic.
On the contrary, the films we are seeing now are a new genre of
exploitative movies, the Christploitation film, if you will.
How are films like Left Behind, God’s Not Dead, and
Son of God exploitative? Let us
look at the definition of exploitative.
Webster’s dictionary identifies it:
ex·ploit·ative adjective ik-ˈsplȯi-tə-tiv,
ek-ˌsplȯi-: exploiting or tending
to exploit; especially : unfairly or
cynically using another person or group for profit or advantage
Take notice of the last example in the definition. Exploitative films have been around so long
that they are in the dictionary. There
are many kinds of exploitative films, including various horror films, monster
movies, and the Blaxploitation film. Even
DeMille’s first The Ten Commandments (1923) can be classified as
exploitation. Wikipedia puts it this
way, “Exploitation film is an informal label which may be applied to any
film which is generally considered to be low budget, and therefore apparently
attempting to gain financial success by "exploiting" a current trend
or a niche genre or a base desire for lurid subject matter.”[7] An argument might be made that these faith
based movies do not fit this definition because they are anything but
lurid. In fact, their core audience
wants to see sanitized fare that is safe for the whole family.
But fitting
the definition, the Christian faith based movie (or Christploitation flick) is
a niche genre and definitely a current trend. “Over the last five years,
independent Christian movies—films with overt proselytizing—have been among the
most profitable independent releases across all genres.”[8] Also fitting the above definition, the
majority of them are made on modest budgets to turn a quick profit. For
example, let us look at the budgets of some Christploitation films released in
the last year. Heaven is for Real
was made for $12 million and grossed $91.4 million. Mom’s Night Out grossed over $10
million and was produced for half of that, while God’s Not Dead earned
$60 million on a budget of only $2 million.[9] So you see, studios are going to make these
small movies with the intention of reaping huge dollars at the box office. Contrary to this trend, the recent Left
Behind was made for a larger budget of $16 million, but in its third week
of release it has only earned just over $13 million.[10]
The reason
this movie seems to be bucking the trend is because it is an awful movie. The filmmakers decided to take more of a
gamble and throw a little more money at this movie expecting the same ratio of success
the other movies enjoyed. It didn’t pay
off this time. A 2012 article states,
“But this year, Cloud Ten is quadrupling down on Left Behind. It plans to spend roughly $15 million to
remake just the first of the series, nearly four times the budget of each of
the original three.”[11] It was the hope of the producers that this
movie would cross over from the group of Christian movie goers to whom
Christploitation flicks pander to the mainstream audience. This didn’t happen. A look at the professional reviews of Left
Behind elucidate why.
Rotten
Tomatoes is a website that compiles movie reviews in order to find a consensus
on the general quality of a film.
Looking at the overall positive or negative nature of the critiques, Left
Behind earned a rating of 2% fresh, meaning just one out of 57 critical reviews
was positive. If you are a Christian
still deciding if you want to catch this remake, just don’t. Listen to some of
the reviews compiled by Rotten Tomatoes. “Left Behind isn't a movie for progressive
Christians any more than it's a movie for people who appreciate top production
values, convincing acting or superlative dialogue.” Matt Brunsen. “The movie unravels in its own destruction.
Every effort to milk the tragedy of the apocalypse is met with terrible music,
acting and effects that soak (and drown) the pathos in camp fare.” Monica Castillo. “Not only is this an amateurish travesty
combining fundamentalist Christian eschatology with disaster movie b.s., but
it's plodding and tedious.” James Berardinelli. [12]
The last
review makes a point that I would like to touch on, that this movie is based on
bad theology. Like the literal,
fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis leads to bad theology (which I
discussed at length in several episodes of my podcast, which you can find here and here), taking the
book of Revelation at face value can lead one to get lost trying to find meaning
in the dreamlike, apocalyptic imagery of the tome and lose the real meaning
behind it. Left Behind is an example of this, using the end of the world
as the McGuffin for an action movie instead of offering hope to those who
follow Jesus that are facing insurmountable persecution. A nice, short read which can help all people
discover the long held, orthodox interpretation of both Genesis and Revelation
is book The Beginning and the End by Michael W. Paul.
So whether
you are hoping to see Left Behind because you are looking for a good
action movie, or because you are looking for a faith based movie which displays
orthodox Christian theology, then Left Behind will disappoint you on
both accounts. As New York film reviewer
Susan Granger says, “Faith-driven audiences deserve better.”[13]
Does this
mean we should avoid all Christploitation movies because we deserve to see
better? By all means, no! Not all of these movies are as terrible as Left
Behind. I personally liked God’s
Not Dead. Kevin Sorbo is compelling
as the atheist philosophy professor who demands that his students likewise deny
God’s existence. The ensuing classroom
debate harkens back to the drama in Inherit the Wind. Even though the rest of the acting is
wooden (sorry Dean Cain), and there are too many plot threads trying to prove
too many preachy points, this movie is pretty good overall.
That does
not mean that Christian moviegoers should blindly throw their money at terrible
movies solely because they are faith based.
As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. If we keep paying for garbage, the movie
industry will keep serving up garbage. But
is Left Behind really that bad?
The ad above claims that Fandango fans gave it four stars, and the
audience score on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 65% approval rating. A closer examination of the reviews on both
websites belies these apparently favorable indicators. For every five-star rating with a simple “I
liked it” review, there are several one-star diatribes describing every
inferior aspect of the movie. In the
end, the answer to the question just posed is: yes, Left Behind really
is that bad.
So if you
are a Christian and a fan of the movies, do not feel compelled to fall into the
old way of thinking, the “us versus them” attitude conservatives copped towards
Hollywood for so much of the twentieth century.
Please do not drag your friends to Left Behind just to feed a
desire to see more faith based movies in the theater. Do your research, look at the reviews, and
spend your money on quality. If Left
Behind fails to meet expectations (which I say it has, both in quality and financially)
it does not mean the end of the world. The end of the world will come at a time
no one expects and in a way no one can predict, just as Jesus said in Matthew 24. In the meantime, Christploitation films are,
for the foreseeable future, going to keep premiering at the cineplex. Just because one falters, it will not
dissuade any other movie producers from making money in the genre. That is my prediction.
Works Cited
Bennett, Cory. "Christian films find fans at
multiplex." Akron Beacon Journal 3 May 2012: F21-F22. Newspaper.
Christian Movies at the Box Office. n.d. website. 27 Oct 2014. .
Flesher, Paul V.M. and Robert Torry. Film &
Religion: An Introduction. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2007.
Johnston, Robert K. Reel Spirituality: Theology
and Film in Dialogue. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006.
Left Behind - Rotten Tomatoes. n.d. website. 27 Oct 2014.
.
Riley, Robin. Film, Faith, and Cultural Conflict:
The Case of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. Westport, CT:
Praeger Publishers, 2003.
