Title: The Prophecy
Director: Gregory WidenReleased: 1995
Starring: Christopher Walken, Elias Koteas, Virginia Madsen, Eric Stoltz, Viggo Mortensen, Amanda Plummer, Moriah “Shining Dove” Snyder, Adam Goldberg
Plot: The angel Gabriel has come to Earth to collect a soul,
which could end the stalemated war in Heaven. In a bid to stop him, another
angel Simon (Stoltz) has hidden the soul in a little girl called Mary (Snyder),
while ex-priest turned cop Thomas (Koteas) is now tasked with protecting her.
Now I should start by highlighting that I’m no theology
scholar as will no doubt only be highlighted further throughout this review,
with the closest knowledge I have on the subject being derived from
those two sessions of Sunday school I attended and general religious pop facts,
which could be another reason for my dislike of this film, seeing how most of
the people who seem to like this film on IMDB all seem to know a lot more about
religion than me, which lets face it isn't hard. Then again it could equally be because I like things like logical
plotting and likable characters, both of which are seemingly not present here,
as most of the time I could not make head or tail of what the hell was supposed
to be happening in this film.
Starting off positively enough with the prospect of trench coat clad angels on earth and even more so when we see Simon kicking Gabriel’s right hand Angel out of a window, which is badass enough until it is then topped by the same angel Uzziel getting hit by a seemingly runaway car and pinned against a wall! Sadly this is essentially the high point of the film, meaning that the remaining 90 mins really feels a whole lot longer than it should.
Needless to say I don’t think that I would have made it
through this one had it not been for Walken who here is on great form even the
material stinks and perhaps because of this he seems to be trying to make the
most of his role, as every scene he has in this film either has him chewing the
scenery or making even the smallest lines of dialogue as darkly funny as possible. This of course while rocking one of his more iconic looks with his pancake makeup
and slicked back jet black hair, which only adds to his villainy which seems to
literaly ooze from him. Still with everything that is wrong with the film, it easy to
see what attracted Walken to playing the character of Gabriel, a role it would
seem he enjoyed so much that he reprised it for the next two sequels, but it is the
sheer drive of this character which makes him so intresting, as not once does
he ever seem to be deterred from claiming the soul, which has been stored in
Mary’s body as no matter how much he is shot, beaten up or even blown up in
exploding trailers, he continually refuses to give up. This however is not to say that he
doesn’t get distracted along the way, as we get random scenes of his hanging
out with a group of kids at Mary’s school while he randomly makes them take
turns blowing a trumpet for no real reason. Equally baffling is his constant
need to have a sidekick, first of all with Jerry (Goldberg) his kind of helper zombie,
thanks to Gabriel keeping him in a state of limbo since they met at an earlier
point when Jerry had tried to kill himself, forcing to walk the earth
in a state of semi rot. However when Jerry bites the dust, Gabriel is almost
immediately on the lookout for a replacement sidekick, yet this constant need
for support is never explained, especially when he is so seemingly capable of
handling things on his own.
Still such illogical plotting is one of the main issues of
this film, especially when it the film turns into a boring road trip movie for if there is one guaranteed way to loose my intrest, it is to fill you film with shots of people driving in the desert for no purpose,
which is what we get with Thomas trying to get Mary to a Native American reservation so that they
can free the soul trapped in Mary’s body, which I thought was kind of strange,
seeing how they make such a big deal about Thomas suffering visions of angels
at war while being ordained as a priest, aswell as suffering other similar
visions and shown frequently quoting scripture in his droning voice over. So with
such an emphasis on Catholicism why go to an Indian reservation and not a
church? Does the Catholic Church only handle exorcisms and not your run of the
mill rouge soul extraction? Equally comical is the soul that is trapped in
Mary’s body, which it would seem director Widen was not content with just
noting as belonging to a bad man, but instead goes the whole hog by making it
the soul of a Colonel responsible for numerous war crimes including most
bizarrely cannibalism, while attempting to back up the supposed evil of this
character with grainy footage of the Colonel standing next to a number of
impaled victims with a sheepish expression on his face.
My other main gripe here is the sheer amount of unlikable
characters, which really says a lot when the villain is the only real likable
one here, which is more down to the awesomeness of Walken than anything to do
with the writing, while outside of Eric Stoltz’s Simon the only other memorable
character is the almost cameo appearance of Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer, who is
almost unrecognisable here as it is a role completely unlike anything else I
have seen him play, as his sneering appearance fuelled with such manic energy
that his brief 15 minutes in the film, lasts with you even when the film has
ended while being one of the more fondly remembered moments of the film, which
lets face it there are not many of here.
It is strange to think that Widen, earlier in his career
would also be responsible for writing two of my favourite films with both
“Backdraft” and “Highlander”, especially when the writing and general plotting
so sloppy here, so much that an epic idea of the battle between Heaven and Hell
ends up coming off looking like a minor squabble especially when his angel
characters, supposedly capable of raining down fire and brimstone, frequently
seem impotent with their powers, which when used seem more like base level
telepathy than the low levels of any kind of great power. Sadly this is a film
which promises many things, but fails to deliver on anything more than a low
level theology musings, yet at the same time I’m left wondering how much worse
the sequels could be, as after seeing this one it is hard to see how much worse
they can get.
Hey Elwood, good review. Yeah, I agree with you this had a really fun performance by Christopher Walken but the rest of the film was a mess of ideas, poorly executed. Shame Widen couldn't recapture the magic of Highlander.
ReplyDeleteThe next two sequels were DTV and directed by Patrick Lussier. They are a bit more fun and more focused. Widen had no involvement I think.
The 2nd one is a bit like Terminator with an angel protecting a woman from Walken. And the 3rd is about the woman's son all grown up fighting one last battle with some kind of mega-angel!
Walken's involvement is briefer in the third one but they do make some interesting developments to his character.
Stay well away from 4 & 5 though. They are just cheap cash-ins shot in Eastern Europe with little to no script or budget (and most importantly no Walken!)
@Jack Thursby: Walken seems to be the key thing, most people like about this movie I have found out since writing this review and it's easy to understand why when he can turn a simple scene such as him standing at the diner counter into a unexplanably funny one.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sequels I have no doubt I will be watching them at some point (no real rush at the moment) so thanks for the heads up on those.
It is still hard to think that Widen created "Highlander" a series which even without his involvement after the first one, still setup enough ideas to carry into the sequels and TV series, unlike this film which seemed to burn out the idea on one film.