Horror. An American Ambassador in Europe discovers that he is raising the Antichrist as his son. Okay, first off, the only thing I really liked about this was Liev Schreiber, but he’s no Gregory Peck. And Julia Stiles is certainly no Lee Remick, in fact Julia was terrible in this movie. This movie was a scene for scene remake of the 30 year old original. I will rent the 30 year version again and again. I will never see this remake again. The old one is scarier, the death scenes are better, the kid is scarier. In this one, he is just cute. A cute Antichrist. I guess one might argue that is the most devilish to appear to be an angel of light, but it don’t work for me. Every thing about the original is better so why bother seeing this one. My first response was that this is the Christian answer to the Da Vinci Code. It’s a studio movie conspiracy theory that elevates the Bible as true, even though I don’t believe in the eschatology of it. But after thinking about it more, I really think that the eschatology, the Dispensationalism whose entire end times scenario is now enshrined in that glorious piece of art and theological acumen, Left Behind, is possibly more destructive than the Da Vinci Code. Why? Because it has created a claim that the Bible is true because all this stuff is supposed to happen, especially within our generation, but it is not happening, and it will never happen because the book of Revelation was a cryptic prophecy that was fulfilled already in the first century. Anyway, so now Christians are awaiting the great rapture to take them all away to avoid pain and suffering, and it simply isn’t going to happen. And the longer it continues to not happen, the more unreliable the Bible will appear to unbelievers, not because the Bible is actually unreliable, but because certain silly escapist Christian interpretations set themselves up as the only true interpretations and continue to make predictions, claim that their homespun predictions correspond to the Bible, as they have for over 30 years, and those predictions continue to fail to happen. Give it up, people. Read Last Days Madness by Gary DeMar, I’m tellin’ ya. You won’t regret it. It will set your eschatology straight.
