Fallen - Angeli caduti

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'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.

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.

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.

Depending on how one breaks it down, this movie can be seen as the first two hours of a six-hour miniseries about Nephelim (also spelled Nephilim) who are hunted down and destroyed as abominations (they are half angel, half human) by The Powers, one of The Creator's clans of angels who helped banish Lucifer to Hell and a contingent of his angels (the Fallen) to Earth where they mated with mortals to create the Nephelim.

The first two hours were first shown little over a year before the concluding four hours, so that on IMDb, they are broken into this two-hour movie and a four-hour miniseries. {See "Fallen" (2007).}

On the plus side, the story moves well enough to sustain interest, and most of the actors turn in satisfactory performances, particularly Tom Skerritt as fallen angel Zeke (who appears only in the first two hours), Rick Worthy as Camael, formerly one of The Powers known as The Punisher, now reformed and out to protect Nephelim Aaron Corbett, a.k.a. The Redeemer, played by series lead Paul Wesley.

Nephelim come of age on their eighteenth birthday; and when Aaron, who grew up in a foster home, learns he's a Nephelim, he wants none of this angel stuff, but wants only to live a normal human life. Aaron protests his true nature at every turn, until a fatal showdown with The Powers, and he is forced to decide which path his life will take.

On the down side, the aforementioned fatal showdown involves an angelic battle which utilizes special effects intended to create wonder and awe, but which is rendered less exciting by the effects' familiarity from prior works.

And Elizabeth Lackey as Verchiel, leader of The Powers, who was so good as the lead character Alexandra DeMonacco in the TV series, "Just Cause", is miscast here -- her emotion is clearly false, and her menace is unconvincing. (Due to reasons which are made clear during this movie, she is replaced by Will Yun Lee in the miniseries. Some fans will remember Lee from the TV series, "Witchblade".)

Still, the story holds promise, and I'm hoping it tightens up in the coming four hours.

Addendum: Both the miniseries and the story itself pick up one year later. There are a lot of new characters introduced, and it takes a while to figure out who is who, and whose side each new character is on. (There are at least four different factions involved in the action.) Lovely Fernanda Andrade as Vilma Rodriguez, who was introduced in the movie, reappears in the miniseries and asks the questions that are on viewers' minds designed to clear up various plot points. (Sometimes obscurity doesn't generate mystery, but leads only to confusion.)