The Prophecy

THE PROPHECY is great schlock, elevated by a wonderful Christopher Walken as the archangel Gabriel. Elias Koteas (who I mainly know as Casey Jones in the firts and third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, so THAT was weird) plays a detective with a religious background who gets mixed up in a second war in heaven. To be honest, the storytelling is a bit messy, but the whole thing is so gloriously entertaining that I cannot help but recommend it, mainly for Walken. His archangel villain is crazy powerful and shrewd, but he also cannot drive a car or find good help from the lost souls he recruits as minions.

.......and there rose a second war in heaven.

Gabriel is a rogue angel intent on capturing the black soul of a recently deceased war criminal general. Standing in his way is the good angel Simon, who hides the soul in a child, a couple of honest citizens, and Lucifer himself, who has his own vested interest in proceedings.

Largely ignored on release, and badly marketed as a horror film, The Prophecy, in this day and age of torture porn and slasher overkill, is crying out to be seen more by a jaded horror audience. For it be a film that has an interesting theological heart, that matches its daring and deeply provocative ideas. Here is a film that adds another chapter to the bible, the result being a battle for a soul on Earth that will have major repercussions for both heaven and hell. Gabriel (Christopher Walken) is even (poignantly some might say) using would-be-suicides as his unwilling helpers, their paths to peace blocked by Gabriel in his cunningly crafted intentions-yes this is pretty tight stuff indeed.

Flecked with the odd bit of humour (zip code wise cracks for heaven and hell), Gregory Widen's film perhaps is guilty of not fully realising end of the world promise. But this is a minor itch come the finale, because really the picture should be judged as one complete and intelligent whole. Cast wise you will search in vain for a weak link, because there simply isn't one. Walken is suitably gargoyle like, slick black hair and pasty faced, he induces fear whilst simultaneously charming the beejesus out of the humans, re: talking monkeys. Elias Koteas (a candidate for most undervalued actor of his generation), Virginia Madsen, Adam Goldberg (suicide Jerry), Amanda Plummer (suicide Rachael), Eric Stoltz (Simon) and Viggo Mortensen (Lucifer), all deliver top line performances to ensure the piece lives up to its billing as one of the best acted cult films from the 90s.

It had enough support to warrant a direct to video franchise, with mixed results following each subsequent sequel. But it's here where it matters, a fine film that deserves far better than the bad reputation it gets from those who expected a straight out horror film. I urge anyone who hasn't seen it to give it a go, open your mind and hope Gabriel doesn't come a wandering in. 8/10

Religion has always been a clouded issue to me. There is absolutely no evidence that there is a God or an afterlife. But that hasn't stopped me ( and billions of people ) from believing in something. And I have always been taught that if there is good, then there is also the bad. If there is a heaven, there has to be a hell. The Prophecy tells us that there is, but it is not necessarily that cut and dried. The ruler of hell in this film is more like a character in a Martin Scorsese film. He is evil ( he has to be, he is Lucifer ) but he is not necessarily here to make God's life miserable. He is not necessarily good, but he is in a self serving kind of way.

The Prophecy is a very confusing and convoluted but brilliant film. The story ( bear with me here, it's been a while since I've seen this film ) is about a war between angels. Some angels became jealous when God decided he loved humans more than them. They become bitter and decide to start a war in heaven with the angels that are loyal to God. Their theory is that if the angels that oppose them are gone, they can take over certain things and hopefully get God's love back. To do this, they must steal the soul of the most heinous person that ever lived. We meet Gabriel, the lead angel in this crusade, and played by Christopher Walken, he is one of the most entertaining characters I have ever seen in the history of film. He has a sense of humour, he is vicious and he uses humans as slaves to do his dirty work. He catches them just before they are about to die and uses them with the promise that he will kill them once their job is finished. Here we meet Jerry, as his human monkey,and the only reason I mention this is because it is one of Adam Goldberg's early roles. He was Upham in Saving Private Ryan and watching this you could tell he had talent and that he would go places. He is fantastic in this film.

Elias Koteas plays Thomas, the only one who may have an insight into what is going on. He was a former priest who understands how religion is playing a part in all of this.

Eric Stoltz plays Simon, one of the good angels that is trying to save the world from Gabriel and he is very affective here as well.

But the star of this film is absolutely Walken. He is perfect as Gabriel. He has a sense of humour and he is evil at the same time. And in some ways you are rooting for him to win. That is until the very end when Satan shows up, because he steals every scene he is in as well.

Satan is played with wicked slickness by Viggo Mortensen. When he speaks he almost slithers and creeps his words onto the screen. He makes a dark scene darker and he keeps you glued to the screen. And his role in this film is one that epitomizes convolution. He is awesome.

This film is one that should not be missed. If you don't understand everything about it the first time, watch it again and again. You'll learn something new every time. And you'll enjoy it more and more. This is one hell of a film!!

I just watched the Harbinger, which has its own unique mythological storytelling in its own right, and was discussing how I've never seen a native American element employed in a Devil movie before. And they said watch the prophecy.

Both movies are great, but this one obviously has a much higher budget. I love Christopher Walken and Viggo Mortensen.

I thought the concept of the war between the Angels and trying to gain a soul was interesting. I can see in both movies how if you don't have the great acting the overall concept could go south real quick.

With guys like Walken and Mortensen the acting definitely brings the entire movie up. Fun watch!

Filmmaker Gregory Widen learned a little, I think, from his previous outing with Highlander: it's not enough to get Sean Connery and have ridiculous immortals and beheadings. You need some fresh ideas that can live past their shelf life of the 1980s without going into complete repetitive mode. With the Prophecy he has a sturdy script chronicling the lapse of faith with an ex-priest played by Elias Koetas and how he comes into the investigation of a series of crimes involving burnt up dead people and lots of signs pointing to a prophecy of thins involving the word "dark".

On the side of themes, things are fine. But he knew that his script needed some uplift and, as with Highlander, needed a star to carry it over past the genre fans. Christopher Walken was his key, and it's one of his true-blue "Walken-iest" performances. He's playing a supernatural creature of the underworld in the guise of himself, so he knows it's time to go to town, and he does. I can imagine Widen smiling to himself as he wrote such lines as "Study your Math, kids", wherein Walken could sink his teeth in and make it an awesome nutbar of a performance. He still brings the creepiness when he needs (in this case all he needs to do as Gabriel is to stare), but it's the superfluous sense of humor, a timing that might be deadpan if it weren't for the evil angle, and it works wonderfully.

The rest of the film is good, I should still say. This is one of those underrated 90s movies that has people who like it or don't, which is the way it goes sometimes (at the least, I would imagine, the first film has a better rep than the sequels, filling up a trilogy which is slightly inexplicable given the ending of this film). Actors like Virginia Madsen, Eric Stoltz, Adam Goldberg and Amanda Plummer take up very good space for what they need to do, but it's Viggo Mortensen who comes out on top as the most inspired casting after Walken. His scenes as Lucifer are tense but calm, if that makes sense, and he has that quality that one may have seen in De Niro in Angel Heart. He's so convincing as him that he makes his own a character that's been repeated countless times - and not just because of the "Mother's feces" line. He notches up the rank of a solid genre piece like the Prophecy into something of a kind of minor must-see - at least for those of us that will dig Mortensen in almost anything.