Not quite up to par with its predecessors, World at War strays greatly from the Left Behind series of books for one pretty substantial reason: Cloud Ten Pictures (Billy Graham’s studio) only had the rights to use the first two Left Behind books as the source for their films. This third entry is still allowed to use character names but it has to go on a tangent that builds upon the characters of the books without following the story lines of the rest of the book series.
This is a tough task, and the filmmakers do a pretty good job. Unfortunately, “pretty good” for the Left Behind movies only translates to “blah” for regular movies. They do away with enough of the poor effects that plague the first two films and add some high profile B/C list talent with Louis Gossett Jr., but the writing suffers and the audience, likely expecting similarities with the books, won’t hold as much interest. Maybe die hard fans will be intrigued by the tangential story, but World at War can’t quite advance the characters to the same point that the third book of the series (Nicolae) did.
Kirk Cameron and his band of End Times believers discover the nefarious plot of world leader Nicolae Carpathia to poison and eradicate the growing Christian menace. He is, after all, the Antichrist. Buck ends up winning the former President of the United States (Gossert Jr.) to his side, but it does little good as the resistance movement only causes World War III and, essentially, the end of America as a world power.
A bit lackluster and overdramatic, Left Behind’s third entry falls just short of middle of the road.
Not quite up to par with its predecessors, World at War strays greatly from the Left Behind series of books for one pretty substantial reason: Cloud Ten Pictures (Billy Graham’s studio) only had the rights to use the first two Left Behind books as the source for their films. This third entry is still allowed to use character names but it has to go on a tangent that builds upon the characters of the books without following the story lines of the rest of the book series.
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