उपयोगकर्ता समीक्षाएं

CRIMSON RIVERS II: ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE (Les Rivières Pourpres II: Les Anges de l'Apocalypse)

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS

Whilst investigating a bizarre murder inside an ancient monastery, two detectives (Jean Reno and Benoît Magimel) stumble on a series of killings related to a mysterious cult and its charismatic leader (Christopher Lee).

Olivier Dahan's stylish sequel sacrifices the original film's emotional content for a series of intense set-pieces, which mutes the intended effect. The visceral impact is formidable, and the Gothic visuals are a treat, but it fails to work on anything but the most superficial level, and Reno seems to be coasting on auto-pilot. Magimot is one of France's sexiest and most talented young actors, and he steals the film from his high-profile co-stars, though Lee is given little to do, and his presence fails to ignite the expected sparks. Excellent makeup and visual effects.

(French dialogue)

I loved Les Rivieres Pourpres. I thought it was atmospheric, dark and a bit sinister. But then how can you go wrong with Kassovitz as the director? Well, this sequel is just as atmospheric, but the story is complete crap. It has to do with an ancient order of monks, a member of the German ministry (Christopher Lee speaking flawless French), and a lot of running around. Benoit Magimel is great to watch. He has a lot of pent up hunky angst, which makes for great cinema, and man can he run! Jean Reno is fabulous - as always. The problem with this film is it is so obtuse. It's as if the writer - Luc Besson, need I say more - thought "hmmm I'll add in some ritual killings, some religious references, some fight sequences but leave out logic and any semblance of meaning." I finished watching the film and just scratched my head. WHAT THE F***? The first film makes you scratch your head in a GOOD way. This one just defies purpose. It's as if a chunk of the script was left out. Watch it if you like pseudo-religious thrillers - there's a lot to choose from these days - but if you really need something deeper; something Oh I don't know sensible, forget this stinker. It looks good. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

While many new writers search for bizarre story material as subject for action thrillers, few have looked to the scariest source of all - St John's Book of Revelation from the Bible. So it is from the pen of Luc Besson ('The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc', 'The Transporter', 'La Femme Nikita') adapting a screenplay from the novel 'Les Rivières pourpres' by Jean-Christophe Grangé that we gain some visualization of the predictions of the Apocalyptic end of the world. And it is as scary as you remember from reading the Bible as a child! Commissioner Niemans (Jean Reno) partners with Reda (Benoît Magimel - the hunky fine actor from 'The Piano Teacher' and 'The Flower of Evil') to investigate a series of crucifixions linked to a near secret abbey. Because of the ecclesiastic nature of the murders a church scholar Marie (Camille Natta) is called in to advise and it is with her skills as an expert on Revelation that she teaches Niemans and Reda the meanings of the breaking of the various Seals, the four horsemen, the events leading up to the prophesied end of the world, and provides the intellectual backup to the thriller chase sequences attempting to apprehend the monks posing as Angels of the Apocalypse provided by Niemans and Reda. Add to this mix the fact that the Abbey is connected to the Maginot Line from WW II and that a German entrepreneur Heinrich von Garten (Christopher Lee) has for some odd reason purchased the Abbey for this own secret agenda and all of the ingredients for a edge of the seat suspense movie are in place.

Reno and Magimel make a terrific screen team with just the right amount of humanism and humor to allow some tension relief for he story. The special effects are excellent as is the cinematography and musical score. Yes, there is considerable blood and guts as each of the 'surrogate apostles' is murdered, but the camera doesn't linger longer than necessary to make the point.

The problem with the film is that it runs out of steam in the end and gives the feeling that someone called "Cut" making story end far too abruptly. But other than that this is a fairly interesting enactment of the Biblical prophecy of the Apocalypse, updated (?) for the audiences of today! Grady Harp, May 05

In Lorraine, close to the border of Germany, the Chief Inspector Pierre Niemans (Jean Reno) is investigating the death of a man behind of a wall of an isolated abbey. Meanwhile, the efficient detective Reda (Benoît Magimel) is investigating the attempt of murder of a man called Jesus. They come to the same point along their investigations, join forces with the detective Marie (Camille Natta), a specialist in religious matter, and fight against Heinrich von Garten (Chritopher Lee), a German Minister of Culture and Religion, and a group of powerful monks.

What a mess is this "Les Rivières Pourpres II - Les Anges de l'Apocalypse"! Using the same character of Niemans from the good "Rivières Pourpres", this movie has some good moments, such as the dark atmosphere and Reda pursuing a monk through roofs, houses, sheds and streets. But the plot is totally confused and quite silly, wasting what could be a good movie. I expected much more, and in the end I was completely disappointed with this movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Rio Vermelhos 2 – Anjos do Apocalipse" ("Red Rivers 2 – Apocalypse Angels")

Rivières Pourpres 1 was better than 2 because in the first there were much more suspense elements. Here we come quick to the action and so surprises were limited in this average story. It's no doubt a fast paced mystery thriller with lots of special and sound effects. There is a scene that is better than Spiderman. The soundtrack is very strong. The setting places of the monastery or the Ligne Maginot were nice shot. Jean Reno made a solid job in his part as the cop Niemans and cool role of the horror legend Christopher Lee. Don't expect a top thriller but if you want to spend an entertaining evening this one works. Fortunately it's not too long. Will they decide to make part 3? I have some doubts. For these reasons our vote is 6/10.

Jean Reno's detective Niemans is back hunting the mind behind a bizarre series of murders and disappearances, all with a religious overtone. It all begins with a bleeding wall in a monastery and goes from there as twists seem to be leading us toward the end of the world.

I would like to report that this is at least the equal of the earlier film (One of the best thrillers of the past five or six years), but I can't. This is a film that has too many characters and too much plot with the result that you're hard pressed to work out whats happening. Characters such as Mary, a religious expert, or Christopher Lee's ominous business man are never more than cyphers. We get to know nothing about them. There are plot twists or points that are never fully explained. Watching this I had the sense that this was suppose to be about an hour longer but that it had been chopped up to its shortest possible running time. I'm led to believe this by the fact that whats on screen alludes to more than we're seeing, this is a film thats alive off the screen. I wish that they had taken the time to explain more.

None of it is really bad, although the acrobatics of the killer(s) in monks robes are much too far over the top for the films own good.

In the end as a rental or on cable this is okay, but but given a choice I'd watch the first one again over this.

Should Luc Besson read this: Please do another-and better- film with Reno's character. He's too good a creation to die after only two outings.

Really? A 5.8 average? That makes no sense. I really don't understand the bad reviews.

I thought this was really entertaining, and was glued to my chair all through the film. Some say I doesn't make sense, but it doesn't make less sense than the Da Vinci code, Stigmata or Rosemary's baby for that matter.

Enjoy it for what it is...a suspenseful thriller with occult/religious overtones. The people who doesn't like this must be into a different kind of genre.

The story was original, and mysterious. The casting for this film was excellent. And extra fun with a small appearance by the ever awesome Christopher Lee. Enjoy!

Not totally convincing, but not worst that the previous movie with the same name (and one of the characters, Jean Reno), this French late addition to the plethora of similar movies on the Apocalypse (well, even with the new millennium it seems that the screenwriters still grip on the myth of the destruction of our race) is a mixed bag of interesting cinematographic ideas (the almost invincible friars that run and fight for the better part of the movie are nice to see) and a wretched script (that, like in the previous Rivieres Pourpres, starts titillating the audience - this time with a Christ like figure and the killing of his Apostoles - but in the end fails to deliver). However, the movie is good enough to be seen at least once.

I rate this a SEVEN because the film is highly entertaining.

The apartment fight scene with Reda is fantastic, and the mood of the film is somber. One feels drawn into the mystery of where it is going.

But the reviewer on the main page has truly nailed the flaws of this film. What is this demonizing of religion all about? The Catholic Church has a far greater role in French society than in the US, and therefore appears more prominently in this film than in say an American flavor of it. In America, the hooded priest hooligans/angels of death would have been laughable. The attention paid to the Jesus-look-alike in the direction of the film is clearly reverential, to add to the legend of the "last days" theme. But this handling truly reveals a deep divide between American and French audiences.

Then appears the sinister German relic in Christopher Lee, survivor of WWII, and even the Maginot line must echo they echo of German/French antipathy. He holds a secret in the mysterious order; so, subliminal message, the Catholic Church is co-opted by Nazis--the Vatican could NOT have been pleased. As the reviewer on the main page notes, the ending is outright theft of concept from Indiana Jones.

The first Crimson Rivers ends in a muddled pool of pre-sentient Christian/Catholic dogma; Empire of the Wolves, while very good, refuses to take on the real Turkish threat, but instead pursues "right wing Turks" who trade in women, drugs, and train terrorists--right and left wing Turks? Hello, Islamists, which are they? The only French Reno film I have seen that is devoid of this French PC/Religious fear/animus is WASABI. Wasabi is a wonderfully funny film, and well worth seeing.

Angels of the Apolcalypse is very entertaining, but comes whimpering to fin.

This flick is full of unrelenting action - some of it so disjointed at the beginning I thought it could be a Hong Kong kung fu production. But the pieces came together in a "Dan Brownish" sort of way about half way through.

Reno is strong throughout, and I couldn't help but chuckle at the "veteran cop/young hot-shot cop" pairing-up that predictably occurred.

Having visited the Maginot line, I could recognize many of the elements used in the film. The pop-up machine gun turret is a real feature of the line, in fact some of the "retractable turrets" house twin 75mm cannon. It was also kind of creepy to tour the underground bunkers which housed thousands of men prior to WWII - even in summer it was dark, cool and damp place. The story makes good use of this dank atmosphere.

The super market scene though will have me looking over my shoulder whenever I enter a Carrefour or E. Leclerc hypermarche in the future.

The ending was the weak part however, and could have been done so much better - it was a little too cheezy for my tastes.

This movie is a shame. How can Besson dare propose such a silly scenario? Besson concatenates clichés of fantastic-techno thriller (religious themes focused on spectacular parts of the Bible, classic former nazi who wants to conquer the world, new-age evangelists, so-called dark-ages secret history,...). The global story is full of incoherences, scenes are illogical between each others, a lot of scenaristic "effects" are ridiculous (the chase with the monk in the hospital, the ambush against Reno with an old german machine-gun turret...). The end of the movie is totally stupid. It is a very bad cameo of Indiana Jones. The dialogues are bad, always cliché. The shooting style is very "clipesque", camera is always moving, lights are totally artificial, very nervous, but it doesn't succeed in hiding the drawbacks of the scenario.

Les Riviéres Pourpres 2. Directed by Olivier Dahan. **

Luc Besson will be remembered among French filmmakers as the one who brought Hollywood to the French mainstream... in a ridicule and absurd way. Fortunately,he has given himself a break from directing, but he still threatens us with turkeys produced by him.

"Les Riviéres..." is just a stupid, mediocre, incoherent film, with characters that I don't give a damn, a mystery too dull to care about solving it, and an awful script. French superstar Jean Reno lacks so much strength in his performance, and hunk Benoit Magimel acts like his hormones are out of control and wants to jump under the pants of every other female police/nurse in the movie.

My girlfriend has this crush on Benoit Magimel. If you feel like her, go and watch it. Otherwise, avoid this boring turkey.

6/10

"Crimson Rivers 2" is a very strange film. However, unless you are familiar with history, you might want to know what the Maginot Line is, as it's an important part of the movie. Following WWI, the French government thought that they could repel any further attacks by the Germans on France by creating a long line of below and above ground defenses on their Eastern border. This old disused string of fortresses come into play during the movie.

The story is strange and very difficult to explain. A weird group of monks are murderers and have been killing people whose first names are the same as the twelve apostles. The film also says the murder victims also had the same jobs as the apostles, though this is not true in many cases. But no matter...they are a weird, dangerous cult. Two cops try to decipher who is behind the murders and why...and throughout the monks, with superhuman strength and immunity to pain, battle them. The battles lead them to the Maginot Line...which is somehow connected to the monestery.

The reason I watched this film is that the leader of the baddies is played by Christopher Lee...a polyglot actor who speaks in excellent French (and a bit of German) throughout the movie. He was, as you'd expect, menacing.

It is a very strange and confusing film...but is it worth seeing? Yes, though I must warn you...it's very bloody and disturbing....not the sort of thing to show your kids or mother. It also is filled with one impossible situation after another after another...and still the cops manage to somehow survive! It has more harrowing escapes than all the Indiana Jones movies...put together!!

Unbelievable...but interesting as well. Not a great film but worth seeing if you want something VERY different!

The movie starts in an interesting way and builds up some excitement with the strange murders and reasonably good action sequences. It is poor in offering explanations for why there were people in the modern world that looked so much like Jesus and his disciples and why they believed in the apocalypse.

Towards the end, you find that the overall story was after all quite weak. Specially, the ending is really sub-par. In fact, if Jean Reno and his team hadn't done anything, the bad guys would have killed themselves anyway in the end. I wish the movie ending had been such that Jean Reno and his team somehow helped kill the bad guys or prevent the doom from happening, but unfortunately it was not so.

Unlike "The Crimson Rivers" which was a great mystery-thriller, its sequel, "Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse" is a great action-thriller with mystery elements. This is a rare sequel that surpasses the original, its got great action, great suspense, non-stop thrills, and it has Jean Reno. Jean Reno returns as Investigator Niemans to investigate a body that was found in the walls of a creepy monastery and later teams up with officer Reda played by Benoit Magimel. Both characters are then thrusted into a fiasco of gun-play, killer monks, end-of-the-world scenarios and an underground cult known as Angels of the Apocalypse. If you like dark and gritty action you're going to love this movie, it even has the best chase sequences I've ever seen put on film, so see it, you can thank me later. Plus it has horror, gore, guns, and a really hot female investigator. What else can we ask for in a straight to your face action movie? It's better than the original and its better than "The Da Vinci Code", sorry, I read a comment that some chick said this movie was worse than "Da Vinci", all I got to ask is, What was that chick smoking? THIS IS A GREAT MOVIE.

Wish the movie was more fleshed out. Loved a lot of the cinematography in this movie. Was a rare treat for that. The story is unique in most parts of the film. But the loose ends aren't tied up. The first movie was a smart movie. Very rare indeed. This one has taken on a more supernatural movie. The belief system has completely failed here. But as far as movies go, it's better than a lot of crap out there. Didn't like the score as much as the original. But the suspense is still in the sequel. Perhaps more so. The creators here though continue to go to great locations. I ought to find a ticket and read some books over there. :)

One thing I found interesting, a lot of the movie played like a video game. Not sure why. Although the French website for this movie has a section that looks like it's promoting a Myst like game.

6/10

Quality: 6/10 Entertainment: 9/10 Replayable: 7/10

The original novel was awesome,and so was Mathieu Kassovitz's movie adaptation,starring Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel.Pity the same can't be said for this disappointing,insipid,useless sequel.

Reno returns as Pierre Niemans,having to investigate on a couple of murders perpetrated by superhuman monks.Yes,the concept IS that bad,and yes,the writer IS Luc Besson,who probably should retire considering his most recent works.Instead of Vincent Cassel and Nadia Fares,we get Benoit Magimel and Camille Natta,whose on screen presence is as interesting as that of an insect.

The main title sequence and the opening murders are visually great,but the rest of the film sucks.Reno and Magimel try to compensate the whole thing with some bad jokes,but when even Christopher Lee's portrayal of the Nazi villain seems to be saying "This time they should have typecast someone else",you realize something has gone incredibly wrong.

One of the worst follow-ups ever,and let's hope the third chapter stays in development hell forever.