Watch Nic Cage Take on The Rapture

Nicholas Cage sure loves his action thrillers. That's about as much as you'll be able to ascertain from the trailer for the remake of Left Behind starring Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Jordin Sparks, and a couple of other people you didn't know were still making movies. Admittedly, we've known that Nicholas Cage's Left Behind remake was coming for a while, but it's one thing to know vaguely of it and another thing to finally see a bit of the finished product. At this stage, Left Behind doesn't seem that much different from any movie Cage has done before.

Left Behind is based on a series of Christian novels about The Rapture. Specifically, as the title would indicate, it's about those who are left in the aftermath of The Rapture. The film reboot only focuses on Cage's Rayford Steele, Michael Murray's Buck Williams, and Cassi Thomson's Chloe Steele, presumably editing out the antichrist and religious angles in order to focus more on the action thriller aspects of the plot. Left Behind's original film came out in 2000 and starred Kirk Cameron, gaining the distinction of being the most expensive Christian film ever made. It also tanked at the box office, which makes the fact that they got Nicholas Cage to star in the big budget remake kind of astounding.

Or, at least, it would be if it wasn't for the things the trailer chose to highlight. It makes the movie look like completely standard Cage fair. If you're looking for an apocalyptic thriller, try watching Cage in Knowing. If you want to watch Cage be a badass, try watching him in Kick Ass. If you want to watch a movie about ancient stories affecting the modern day, try National Treasure. Any one of those movies seems like it'd be more worthy of a rewatch than Left Behind is of a first watch. The trailer just falls flat, in part because we've already got a post-Rapture work coming out soon in the form of HBO's The Leftovers. Cage's film just looks like The Rapture meets Snakes on a Plane — except not played for laughs.

In fact, the Rapture aspect isn't played up anywhere near as much as it could be. I mean, Nicholas Cage in a Christian action thriller? Only one of those things is not like the other. This has the potential to either be really, really good or really, really bad. Maybe when more trailers come out, we'll get a better feel for the film beyond feeling like it reminds us of about seven better movies or at least three other works we could watch instead. Then again, it could be worth checking out just to see Nicholas Cage handle The Rapture.

Head to Facebook to watch the trailer for Leftovers.