La prophétie des Andes

I've had the pleasure to watch this film four times, and I've enjoyed each viewing more than the last. Having read the book twice - once 11 years ago and once two months ago - I feel that the movie did an admirable job of expressing the essence and heart of the book, while keeping it within 100 minutes and palatable for the average movie viewer.

It is clearly not a polished, big-budget film, and yet it attracted many well-known and respected actors. It addresses issues of power and control in relationships, religion, and politics in a fresh and contemporary way. To me, its greatest accomplishment is bringing a New Spirituality perspective to screen - where humans are not disconnected beings in a random universe, nor sinners subject to the wrath of an angry God, but are one with everything and are co-creators of their experience of life.

I suggest you will get the most from this film by looking at it not as a blockbuster, but as a paradigm-buster.

Happy viewing!

I don't know what that other guy was thinking. The fact that this movie was independently made makes it no less terrible. You can be as big a believer as you want... the majority of this film is mindless drivel. I feel i have been insulted by having to watch the first 40 minutes of it. And that alone was no small feat. Not only is the acting terrible, but the plot is never even close to developed. There are countless holes in the story, to the point where you can hardly even call it a story anymore. I've never read the book, so I can't critique on that, but this is the first review that I've written here and it's purpose is solely to save all you viewers out there an hour and a half of your life. I can't remember the last time I couldn't even finish watching a movie. This one really takes the cake.

An adaptation of James Redfield's novel about the search for a sacred manuscript in the Peruvian rain forest . Disillusioned and temporarily rudderless, John Woodson (Matthew Settle ) is about to experience a dramatic and profound metamorphosis. Through a mysterious set of coincidences, he travels to Peru to find out strange scrolls , known as the Celestine Prophecy. In Peru Woodson meets a motley group of people (Sarah Wayne , Hector Helizondo , Jurgen Prochnow , Anabeth Gish..) with dark secrets . John gets drawn into a cobweb of mysterious events . Resistant at first, skeptical and unsure, John finds that each step he takes, each person he encounters leads him to a new awakening. It is only in this letting go that he finds his destiny and comes to understand the meaning that had escaped him when his adventure began.

Thought-provoking film that packs suspense , thrills , religious events , heartfelt message and weird philosophy . It's a crossover among various films , as it takes parts from ¨The Seventh Sign¨ , ¨The fountain ¨ , ¨The reaping¨ , and ¨The gathering¨ . The picture contains an interesting premise about the prophecy and its nine key insights, predict a new awakening that redefines human life and provides a glimpse into a completely spiritual culture on earth . It's a spiritual triller skillfully narrated with bit action and slightly entertaining. This polished film provides chills, thrills in lively mystery . It's rich and dark though sometimes confusing . The film belongs to supernatural prophecy sub-genre (along with : ¨The omen¨, ¨The seventh sign¨, ¨The Body¨ , among others). Average acting by Matthew Seattle as a young who finds himself on an adventure to Peru in search of ancient scrolls . Very good support cast plenty of respected players such as Thomas Kretschmann as Wil , Sarah Wayne Callies as Marjorie , Annabeth Gish as Julia , Hector Elizondo as Cardinal Sebastian , Joaquim de Almeida as Father Sanchez and Jürgen Prochnow as Jensen . Esoteric music and excessive use of synthesizer by Nuno Malo .

The motion picture loosely based on the book Celestine Prophecy was regularly directed by Armand Mastroianni . Armand has been directing feature films, mini series, movies of the week, TV pilots and episodic series since 1979 beginning with his first feature film "He Knows You're Alone" which was released by MGM in 1980 and featured the screen debut of Tom Hanks. That film led to a string of features including "The Killing Hour" developed with William Fredkin, "The Supernaturals," "Distortions," "Cameron's Closet" and "Double Revenge." In between shooting feature films Armand began to produce and direct episodic television shows and series like Virus , Invasión , First daughter , Citizen Jane , A Gunfighter's Pledge , The finalist , Pandemic and many others .

Although this movie captures the essence of the book and illustrates a very important message, it does not really bring more than the book. However for those who did not read the book (hello... someone?), it may be an incentive to do so and to discover a new way to look at the world and at oneself.

In spite of a good realization, the film does not stir your soul or even draw a little tear. It is a mind-boggling story and as with the book, many people will follow the hero and find out they can easily identify with him. Unfortunately, the movie targets your mind when it should target your heart. You look at this incredible story with a detached mind and at the end, you may be tempted to say "so what" ?

People interested in the whole "Celestine philosophy" should see it but I recommend renting the DVD.

If there are any secrets of life, if there are any universal truths which can guide us, this film failed to illuminate them.

While an acceptable piece of movie making, Celstine Prophecy fell down in that category as well. Its main cinematic problems -- a lead actor who basically can't act; dialog that sometimes made even good actors like Hector Elizondro look bad and a confusing, inconclusive ending that failed completely to provide the "pay off" that is usually required to send the audience away feeling satisfied.

But this picture, first of the current mysticism or spirituality films to hit the screen this year, was also supposed to be about something more than movie making. While one could debate the validity of its philosophy till the cows come home, it would seem fitting to note just a couple of things.

The film, and the book which spawned it, are both called "The Celestine Prophecy," yet no prophecy was really detailed or even outlined. There were only some vague references to scrolls written about 500 or 600 AD which seemed to predict that sometime in the future the world would be racked with war and strife. Well, gosh, that's really going out on a limb, isn't it? Since the Dark Ages were racked with war and strife and since basically the entire history of mankind is filled with war and strife, predicting more war and strife doesn't make you insightful in my view. Its like predicting hurricanes are going to hit the Gulf Coast. Only FEMA could have been caught off guard by hurricanes in hurricane season.

Anyway, the scrolls are more about insight into human behavior than anything else, or so it would appear. Whose insight? That is not only never disclosed, its not even addressed in the film. Which gives us the image of a lot of seemingly well educated people willing to change their entire lives because of eight scrolls, which may be the earliest known examples of the chain letter.

And what is the philosophy? That isn't exactly explained either. Best I could figure out, it was a cross between the "feel the force, Luke," idea from Starwars and "The Power of Positive Thinking" stuff put forth in self help books in the 50s. It went a little beyond that, as it also included the kind of "look at the beauty around you" talk that usually came from people urging you to ingest controlled substances, probably not an unusual past-time for people in the Peruvian jungle.

This is a work of fiction, so the author was probably not intending it to become the foundation of a worldwide movement. But then maybe L. Ron Hubbard had good intentions, too, but the next thing we knew, we had Tom Cruise jumping up and down on a sofa and then planting his demon seed in poor little Katie Holmes and now we've got to mount a rescue mission to get her and her child away from those people. Gee, I wonder what Peter Graves and Marty Landeau are doing these days?

That brings us back to movie making and there was some good acting in "Celestine," mostly from the girls. Full props to Sarah Wayne Callies and the always reliable Annabeth Gish who both did fine jobs with their roles.

A marginal thumbs up, but very marginal. There are better cinematic experiences around and much better philosophical ones.