Watching the movie "Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist" guarantees a lot of excitement that does not only stem from work events, but is related to what is happening around us and directly affects our lives, especially the sharp political and societal shifts that it is going through. the world right now.
The famous director and actor Kevin Sorbo presented the sixth part of the “Step Back” films, which narrates the events of the last time in which the Antichrist appears before the Messiah descends to eliminate him, and Sorbo replaced Nicolas Cage, who achieved great success in the previous part, which was shown in 2014. And it achieved revenues amounting to 30 million dollars from theaters only, while the new part, issued at the beginning of February, did not exceed more than 4 million so far.
Narrative and cinematic dramas have caused a lot of confusion among critics, the comments of the devout Christian audience, and even some clerics because of the different interpretations of religious texts and sectarian differences.
The cinematic series, with its six films, was based on a fictional series consisting of 16 novels by writers Tim Hague and Jerry B. Jenkins, published in the mid-1990s, and achieved sales of more than 80 million copies, and left real imprints on the mindset of the generation that is terrified until now when it imagines the most prominent dramatic event in the “Step To” films. The successor” is the disappearance of millions of people, and the inability of children to find their parents after their disappearance.
The new part of the "Step Back" series contains many stories that adopt conspiracy theory, especially about the Corona vaccine and other global events that have been attributed to mysterious parties such as diseases, earthquakes, the disappearance of planes, and the kidnapping of people.
And these interpretations of the Corona vaccine and other vaccines and some new diseases find an echo on the ground by some religious people and supporters of the politically and socially conservative orientation in America, so some saw it as a reflection of those visions, especially since financing the production of the work and the entire series comes from outside the usual outlets of financing, As individuals and non-cinematic destinations financed its production.
disastrous prophecy
The world begins to regain its ability to continue, and life revives again in societies after a complete closure of 6 months, after the disappearance of millions of people and the collapse of financial markets and governments.
Someone claims that a new wave of disappearances will happen soon, but news anchor Buck Williams (Greg Biro) confronts this prophecy as false.
Faced with opposition from the head of the news channel Steve Blank (Corbin Pearson) and his network, the announcer decides to team up with hacker Dirk Burton (Stafford Perry) and discover a plot to control the global money supply led by billionaire media mogul Jonathan Stonagal (Neil McDonough).
The film's narration begins with a review of the chaos that prevails in the world, and the many questions about the disappearance of people, and shows scenes of terrible human crowding in exchange with the questions posed by the broadcaster through the screen, and shows some landmarks of the city of Jerusalem in a few clips, in addition to demonstrations in various places in the United States, especially New York City. And the attempts of the security forces to limit the spread of these demonstrations.
Despite the descriptive presentation that establishes the narrative structure and is an introduction to the following events, it reveals a minor perception that considers the world to be the United States only and adds to it the ideological extension related to Jerusalem.
Each character in the work has its own story of repentance or resorting to God in moments of distress, and the terminology used in the dialogue of the film confirms the identity of the work that mentioned the idea of human disappearance during the world war waged between two camps as the call of the Almighty to his loved ones according to the film, and thus their absence from the earth, It is the same meaning that was embodied in the movie “2012” in 2009, directed by Roland Emmerich, when a disaster occurs, and the righteous disappear, and only the corpses of the unrighteous appear on the ground.
The world is divided into two camps at that point, the first of which is led by Nikolai Carpathia (Billy Chase), who controls the entire world, in his capacity as Secretary-General of the United Nations, then as the most powerful ruler of the world community, and finally by claiming divinity, and enters the war of the end of the world (Armageddon) and besieges Jerusalem.
The second camp is led by Rayford Steele (Sorbo), who grew up in a humble family, but achieved many successes by becoming a fighter pilot and starting a family.
But he feels negligence towards his religion, and after he suffers death, he declares his repentance and decides to confront Carpathia or the Antichrist.
The simplicity of the story
The film, which takes place in a postmodern city, whose sky does not appear due to skyscrapers, ends with a church sermon and a text from the Bible, an end that confirms the American Church's use of technology and art tools in religious propaganda, but does not indicate the success of the cinematic experience.
The action hero Steele's personal decision was to kill the Antichrist, and he is in real life - according to the context of the film - a politician and president of the United Nations, and despite the general context that supports the idea of eliminating this villain, the message expected to reach the viewer here is summarized in the use of individual violence with opponents Outside the context of the film, especially since the killing here is mainly for religious reasons, and it is most likely that the appearance of such an idea in an Arab film is enough to accuse its owner of calling for terrorism.
Family drama and personal relationships, whether in the Steele family and his wife who had resorted to religiosity earlier, or the deviation of his son Remy, or the relationship of daughter Chloe with a producer and news anchor, all appeared as if they were made out of work or parts redundant to the need for the cosmic drama in which millions die. Humans and others disappear, during which people live the end of the world.
The human story appeared in the film like a small model, the makers of the work tried to provide it with huge details that it could not bear, so it exploded, and sermons, lessons and texts were scattered, and this work came out as a product standing in a middle ground between the film and the direct religious discourse across the screen.