The Fallen Ones

Five thousand years ago, in Sumer, the fallen angels had intercourse with human females and their offspring were a race of giants called Nephilim, destroyed by the great flood. The evil angel Ammon (Navid Negahban) mummifies his son Aramis to save him, and hides in hell. In the present days, the archaeologist Matt Fletcher (Casper Van Dien) finds Aramis tomb with excavating for building a resort for the entrepreneur Morton (Robert Wagner). The engineer Angela (Kristen Miller) joins the team, giving support in the diggings. When some workers mysteriously vanish, Morton hires the security force of Ammon to find the missing men. However, his real intention is to resurrect Aramis in the eclipse of the moon and dominate the human race with a new breed of giants.

"The Fallen Ones" has a promising idea, recalling those sci-fi horror movies from the 50's, but unfortunately it is badly executed. This low budget movie is leaded by Casper Van Dien, a promising actor in "Starship Troopers" that fell to a synonym of star of low quality films, and "The Fallen Ones" is no exception in his terrible filmography. The plot has many flaws and terrible lines, but contradictory entertains, with some laughable scenes. The funniest one is when Matt throws one dynamite banana precisely in the mouth of a 12 m (i.e., a height of a four floors building) mummy in movement, blowing up Aramis. The best in this watchable, but predictable and forgettable movie, is the beauty of Kristen Miller. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Os Anjos do Mal" ("The Angels of Evil")

I generally avoid anything this guy is in. He is the new Lorenzo LLamas as far as acting and the quality of the films he appears in goes. He was not completely laughable in this picture however, which is high praise compared to my estimation of his other work. Hopefully he will continue to get better. I haven't checked, but I get the feeling that he started out in soap operas and never really graduated beyond that level. He tends to do a lot of intense looks and pauses that generally mean the actor is searching for the next line.

This was better than average for a VanDien vehicle. If there is nothing else in the video store you haven't seen and you've seen all of the movies you like more than once, this would not be the worst choice for a rental. Let me stop before all of this praise seems maudlin.

It is a movie which is good enough to watch if there is nothing else and you like the genre. Maybe it is not meant for grownups to watch, but merely for the younger SF-lovers. Most of the scenes have been seen in other movies. The jokes are a little repetitive and there are some questions about the motives of the characters. The positive part is that the violence is not so obvious and taken with a sense of humor. The special effects are OK, but not up to date. Sometimes the scenes are so fast that you need to stop your DVD player to be able to appreciate the scene. Not a movie which you would like to see a second time. All in all a very predictable movie.

...from this awful movie! There are so many things wrong with this film, acting, writing, direction, editing, etc. that it's amazing that something rises to the top and proves itself to be the absolute worst. The music! I noted that the film has two composers listed. This must be the reason why every single frame has music, of the absolute worst "D" movie style drivel. They have never heard of the expression "less is more". It got so painful to listen to, I muted the sound every time there was no dialogue, not that the dialogue was that good. You have to feel sorry for Robert Wagner and Tom Bosley, I'm sure they didn't see roles like this in the twilight of their careers. See it at your own risk.

When archaeologist Matt Fletcher (Casper Van Dien of Starship Troopers) finds a mummified giant from the biblical age, he bites off more than he can chew as he & his crew are soon beset by both cult members who worship this thing as well as the giant's father, a fallen angel who hopes to resurrect him. Now it's up to Matt, Angela & Rabbi Schmidtt (Tom Bosley??!!?) to stop both factions and their evil plans.

This was one of the better Sci-fi Originals films that I've seen and I found that it moved at a brisk pace (for the most part, there are some lulls in action here and there) The film is heavily cheesy, but thats kind of part of it's charm. All the actors work well for the type of film that it is. Especially the always entertaining B-movie mainstay Irwin Keyes as a member of the cult.

My Grade: C