Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002)

Stilted, preachy, but enjoyable, kinda....
Left Behind is based on the award winning multi-selling Christian novel extravaganda. The premise is that people (only true-blue Christians) are all taken away by God before all the bad stuff starts to happen on earth during the end times. Funny thing is that there are a significant amount of Christians who believe this stuff. Yes, their god will come down in secret and take all these good people away (leaving only their crumpled clothes as we know they will be nude in heaven)>

Ridiculous stuff, but could have made a half-decent horror movie out of it if they were so afraid of violence (though the bible is certainly R rated and above in places and should be unavailable to children).

The worst part of this film is Kirk Cameron's preaching to everthing that moves. Yes, he tells them that god will torture you forever cause you lied, stole a paperclip or lusted after a woman - that's the message. Why anyone would believe in such a petty god punishing people forever is their business, personally I find it's all a scary fairy tale, but...

As a film, quite entertaining, and the chick in it Stapleton is kinda hot, but no sex scenes (cause sex is evil) and boring tamed down violence.

Only 2 stars for me.

What has happened to Hebrew in this film?
Just before Buck and Rabbi Ben-Yehuda cross over to the sealed teritory of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, we get a glimpse at a big red warning sign saying in English "Do not cross. Violators will be shot." Above the warning in English we get also what seems to be the Hebrew translation to that same warning. However, this is not the case. Someone has decided to either play a prank or just got it all wrong. The letters are in Hebrew but the words mean nothing except for phonetically copy the warning in English backwards. What's wrong? Not enough Jews in NY to translate it correctly? Not funny, just sick.

As to the movie itself, the film suffers from too much missionary mumbo-jumbo and makes very little logic if at all. It also covers all possible racist remarks and inuendos: the Muslims are portrayed as clumsy war-seekers that play into the hands of the Antichrist, whereas the Jews are the genius fools that can be manipulated by both good and evil only to finally witness and confess their historical mistake and sin respectfully.
All other religions are either forgotten or just gathered under the infamous "they will perish" kind of exclamation. Interestingly, The State of Israel is portrayed as a passive, impotent entity for it cannot defend itself in any way. When the Arab joined air forces surprise attack Israel in the first film, the IDF is practically paralysed. In the second film, it is the Antichrist who calls the shots as he orders complete siege of the Western Wall untill his arrival there.

Missionary could have been acceptable and maybe even convincing, in my opinion, if it would have followed some good sense and showed less ignorance. Otherwise, I prefer other positions.

What a movie!!!
If you enjoyed the first one you will enjoy this one too!!