Fallen - Angeli caduti

I liked this movie. Obviously I'm not the only one who thought it seemed more a premiere of TV show. Tina's review of the movie clearly indicates that she thinks this is a new show. It watched like a premiere, it talked like a premiere, it acted like a premiere, and it ended like a premiere. Unfortunately, it's just a book made into a TV movie.

With the exception of Tom Skerritt, the acting was excellent. I've always love Tom's work, but his performance was very overdone and contrived in this movie. It did serve to contrast against the great performances by the other actors. Dialog that could have easily turned into groaning, eye-rolling diatribes by an unnecessarily wordy and preachy script was, instead, smart, funny, and well paced.

They could have gone crazy with the flaming swords and weapons, but subtle and creative foley artwork kept it from becoming some sort of Holy Light Saber battle. The only really annoying thing to me was the dog's voice! Scale it back a bit! I thought it would've been better if they touched it up a bit to sound as if it were more like he were hearing the dog's words in his head.

I hope the networks get enough positive feedback that this does eventually get developed into a regular show.

I haven't read any of the Fallen books, but I'd like to take a look at one now. The movie was pretty entertaining. Paul Wesley was an unfortunate choice for the lead - he's one of those generic square-jawed types like the leads in the TV series Supernatural - but the rest of the cast was pretty good. The story was interesting and I just loved the dog, who was very funny and really caught the spirit of dogginess.

I'm not sure what to make of the show's bizarre mythology, it's sort of like that Broadway musical about the Wizard of Oz in which the bad witch turns out to be a good, misunderstood witch. Here, the good guy is a Nephilim (who are very bad guys, incidentally, in the TV series Hex) and God has sent angels to earth who are horrible and murder innocent people with abandon.

So I'm curious as to what sort of God we are expected to think put all this in motion. Is God a big picture kind of guy who sets things in motion and then sits back and lets them play out? Or did he have a plan and actually die and now it's up to everyone to manage as best they can? I'd be curious to know if it's as easy to come to the same conclusion by reading the books; perhaps they have a more detailed mythology that would allow for a different interpretation. But as angel movies go, this one doesn't really wind up putting God in a very kindly light (I've no objection to that, I just find it interesting).

I'll also go against one of the other critics here and say I thought Tom Skerrit was the best actor in the movie and also that I liked the huntress angel, who apparently was a guy in the books.

I thought that Fallen was a great Movie the first time I saw it. It contained a interesting plot that always kept you wanting more. It's a story about a boy named Aaron who is an orphan. He just wants to have a normal life with his family. Aaron is an excellent student and has a specialty for languages. He also has a fascination for angels. One day he notices strange things are happening to him. For example he meets this homeless man who knows too much about him. He can speak a ton of languages he didn't even know, fluently. Now he starts to realize he can do these things for a reason. He has a purpose in his life, but he doesn't want to accept the fact that he has "special" traits and abilities that are very noticeable by "some" people. Now he must find out what is happening and why. Also he must fulfill his purpose on earth. Because earth depends on it.

After Fallen aired, there was a promotion that sent me to a website called www.oculareffect.com - this professor is looking into an online object he calls the Oculus (www.00112358.net) - almost every week it updates with a strange symbol (just like the ones that Aaron Corbett sees burned into his skin!). Inside there is a puzzle that unlocks a vision of the past or the future - so far it has sent us to another nephilim called Faith Arella who has a weblog (www.faitharella.com) - on it she is chasing these symbols to meet people around the world. It's another story that's happening online during the break between now and the next episode of Fallen - it looks pretty cool and I've already registered for email updates.

I'll try not to make this a horribly long winded rant, so please bear with me, but am I the only person who in fact read the books then became excited about the mini series only to cry when watching it? Not because the story is sad, or anything or the sort, but because they've ruined the plot and the beauty of the original? It became so bad that I couldn't even finish the watching it, and would hardy let my mom tell me what had happened. I just couldn't stomach it.

Verchiel is female, which had me blinking confusedly at my TV, and then everything that was to follow was just plain.. Outrageous. I found Aaron as a protagonist to be.. A disappointment, which is maddening, because in the books he is.. Very deep, and wonderful, and so many other beautiful things they didn't take the time to capture in the mini series. Sure.. I know they didn't have the time.. But honestly they could have done a much better job. They could have done him justice, they could have done the books, all the deep, rich and thoughtfully pieced together characters justice, but they just didn't.

I don't recommend this to anyone. The books, yes.. I love them, and they have many a wonderful moment, all that make a sort of sense that's hard to find anywhere else.