LEFT BEHIND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Best Comedy of 2014 save for nutty Christian fundamentalists

Here's some dialogue that might have improved the
already-loathsome, though often hilarious dialogue
in this dreadful God Squad disaster debacle.

Left Behind (2014)
Dir. Vic Armstrong
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Nicky Whelan, Cassi Thomson, Lea Thompson, Jordin Sparks, Michael Klebba, Alec Rayne, Quinton Aaron

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are movies more dreadful than Left Behind, but few as funny. It's a slightly bigger budgeted reboot of an early 90s version starring Kirk Cameron which, I've not seen but is perhaps even funnier than this one, but until I partake of that, this will do nicely. What we're dealing with is a cellar-dweller disaster movie with an inept screenplay, oh-so blessed with an irredeemably Christian fundamentalist slant.

A somnambulist airline pilot (Nicholas Cage) contemplates an adulterous tryst with a hot stewardess (Nicky Whelan) because his loopy wife (Lea Thompson) has found Jesus H. Christ. Cage's hot daughter (Cassi Thomson) isn't too crazy about Mom's new marriage to the Son o' God, either, but she's still cheesed at Dad for never being at home and ogling a young lady who's young enough to be his daughter and, uh, bears a not-too-dissimilar look to her (blond, perky, sexy and well-proportioned for humping).

It seems Daughter Dearest is wet for a hunky journalist (Chad Michael Murray) who'll be flying in first class aboard Daddy's plane, but not before the two potential sack-mates engage in an interminable conversation within an airport cafe (which is supposed to be LaGuardia in Queens, but looks suspiciously like no airport in New York State). Once the plane heads across the pond to Blighty, Cage's daughter goes to their suburban family home, looking suspiciously like a neighbourhood nowhere near the isle of Manhattan.

As Mom prays to Jesus, Darling Daughter grabs her little brother and heads to the mall, looking like no mall from the neck o' the woods in which the movie is supposedly set. Soon, the fake airplane Cage flies is sailing through the skies and we cross-cut twixt this locale and the mall. And wouldn't you know it, but on the plane and at the mall - at the same time, no less - every single child and quite a few adults completely vanish into thin air, leaving behind piles of their previously-adorned (though freshly-cleaned-and-pressed) clothing. Seems like something sinister is afoot.

God only knows what.

Speaking of God, He, as in God, the Father, that is, appears to be the Holy Culprit behind this mystery. The fake airplane encounters major troubles and the leafy, suburban paradise in New York is hit with all manner of Hellish activity and hysteria. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that, Our Lord has snatched up all the Believers to keep them safe in Heaven, while all the non-Believers suffer disaster and violence within a veritable apocalypse, rendered not-too convincingly on the movie's supposed budget, most of which has clearly been spent on Nicholas Cage's salary. Given that Cage expresses only two emotions (I'll not spoil them for you), one suspects the producers might have been financially cold-cocked by his agents.

In addition to one hilariously unintentional line of dialogue after another, the movie delivers a midget who is a racist and a devout Muslim who is NOT saved by God because, he is, well, a Muslim.

And this, believers and non-believers alike, is how this awful(ly) funny movie rolls. Christians, especially of the fundamentalist variety, are not too bright to begin with, but any of them who swallow this bilge water are no doubt completely and utterly bereft of brain.

The rest of us, though, can have ourselves a good, old, knee-slapping frolic through The Rapture.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Left Behind is in wide theatrical release via eOne.

SON OF GODZILLA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Goddamn it all to Hell. Where's the fucking monsters? Why do the filmmakers rip us off with the story of Jesus? Why didn't they just call their fucking movie SON OF GOD?

GODZILLA VS. JESUS H. CHRIST

Son of Godzilla (2014) ONE PUBIC HAIR
Dir. Christopher Spencer
Starring: Diogo Morgado and a bunch of actors I've never heard of and never want to see again

Review By Greg Klymkiw

So I'm thinking whilst this movie unspools that maybe, just maybe, this is some kind of revisionist take on the famed Japanese monster Gojira (known in English as Godzilla), but I've got to say, watching this movie was so damn frustrating. I hate it when you see a monster movie and you have to wait forever for the monster to finally show up. I'm also thinking it's a bit weird that they've made a movie called Son of Godzilla to come out on Blu-Ray around the same time that a new Godzilla is opening all over the world.

I am, however, a patient man. I've been told I've the patience of Job. So fuck it. I'm here for the duration. I'm going to give this sucker a chance if it kills me. So, some dude called John starts telling us the story of a guy called Jesus. I mean is this THE Jesus? You know, as in Jesus H. Christ? I'm thinking - okay, I can deal with this.

He starts telling us about how Jesus is born to a virgin and do we get to see Mary popping a green lizard out of her virginal quim? Do we get to see Godzilla in the barn with the fucking cows and lambs? No! The movie does the whole Star of Bethlehem thing and even has three fucking Wise Men from Orientare visit the little bugger in his swaddling clothes and give him a bunch of useless gifts except, I guess, for the gold. I mean really, these people look pretty fucking poor and this Mary chick has just popped her sucker into a bed of straw in a barn. The fuck are they going to do with frankincense and myrrh? Then again, maybe they can take it to a pawn shop or something. Fair enough.

Anyhow, I figure it's just a matter of time before they introduce the Son of Godzilla. The Jesus dude grows up into a hunky fella played by some really pretty boy I've never heard of before called Diogo Morgado. He starts visiting a bunch of dudes and asks them if they want to be his disciples. I'm thinking, you know, this actor is gorgeous. Maybe he's going to hit a steam bath soon and we're going to see him put those "purty lips" to good use. I'm thinking here of that hillbilly in Deliverance looking at Jon Voight and imagining a nice blow job when he says, "He sure gots hissef a purty mouth." No such luck. No blow jobs twixt Jesus and the disciples. The biggest drag is I'm expecting we're going to get some revisionist stuff going soon and that maybe Jesus is going to recruit the Son of Godzilla. That's not to much to ask, is it?

No dice. No Godzilla. No Son of Godzilla. Still no monsters. (We do get to see Satan later on, but they've got him made up to look like Barack Obama, so that doesn't count.)

Instead Jesus displays his ability to perform magic tricks - you know, kind of like David Copperfield or Doug Henning or better yet, Siegfried and Roy. But no, does he do any tricks with Siberian Tigers? In a pig's eye! All we get is the tired old walking on water, turning a basket of mouldy food into enough kippers and pita to feed an army and give me a break - when he goes into that cave I'm thinking maybe he's finally going to meet Godzilla and raise HIM from the dead, but no, it's that old chestnut of raising Lazarus from the dead.

At this point, I realize I've been mightily ripped off by the God Squad who made this movie. The picture just drags us through all the usual crap of Jesus pissing off the Pharisees, having his last supper, getting fucked over by Judas, getting arrested and scourged and then forced to carry a cross to Calvary. And la-di-fucking-da, he gets nailed to the goddamn cross and even here, I'm holding out for a big rescue from the Son of Godzilla. I mean, really. Who wouldn't want to see all those fucking Romans get stomped and munched by a giant green lizard? Would that be too much to ask?

What I want to ask is this: So they lied to us about Godzilla, but why did they have to make this unbelievably boring and awful movie about Jesus Christ when there are plenty of decent Jesus pictures out there. Think about it. We've got Nick Ray's I Was a Teenage Jesus movie King of Kings, we've got George Stevens dragging us through the most beautiful picture postcards for five hours in The Greatest Story Ever Told (which, by the way, has John Wayne in it), there's Franco Zeffirelli's TV movie Jesus of Nazareth that's genuinely pretty damn good and last, but not least, the greatest Jesus double feature of all, Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ where Jesus gets to fuck Barbara Hershey and the biggest horror show of them all, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Mel gives us so much Jesus Flagellation Porn that we're sitting there thinking we've NEVER seen so much bloodletting in any movie ever made.

Gibson delivers the goods so big time, you've gotta wonder, who the fuck needs Godzilla?

Son of Godzilla is available on Blu-Ray and DVD, but I'm telling you, it's a major ripoff. Why didn't they just call it Son of God and be done with it?