Gabriel - La furia degli angeli

I had my doubts about this film when I first saw the trailer - to me it looked like a ripoff of the Nightwatch premise. However, when I saw it I learned that the story itself was very different. Oh sure, it has a Jesus-like story arc much like the Matrix and a good vs bad that pretty much every fantasy film has.

What I liked about this one was that the story didn't follow the usual formulaic storyline that you can almost time down to the minute. At first I wasn't sure where the story was headed, but as it unfolded I became drawn into it. I enjoyed the story, and it's exploration of the concept of freedom. I found it to be a story of great substance, and bears watching a second time in order to fully appreciate it, much like films such as Donnie Darko.

I liked that the cast was filled with people I didn't know, it gave it a freshness and allowed one to view it without the context of the actors cluttering the story. I liked the gritty visuals and sound - it pulled this off without the need to provide motion-sick tablets with your ticket, unlike movies like the Bourne Ultimatum which took wobbly camera shots a bit too far. It is a look typical of many Australian films, such as Wolf Creek, but the comic-book look of the film gives it a sense of fantasy which suits the story perfectly.

One thing I particularly liked was the way the fight scenes were realised - a fresh approach to supernatural battles which, I think, works well.

I found the effects a little over-done at times, and some of the visuals could have used a bit more polish, but considering the film's budget (or lack thereof), I think it's very impressive.

Sure, it's no Hollywood blockbuster, but that's kind of the point.

Well, after reading some of the reviews here, I was expecting this movie to be awful. I wanted to watch it as the storyline sounded intriguing. From the moment I starting watching this movie, I wanted to hate it. Most of the time, films with these kind of story lines, always seem to mess up, and was expecting the same here. But, it wasn't the case. The time seemed to fly by, usually a good sign when watching a movie. Now yes, if you 're the "critic" type, or work for the Oscars, you might have lots of negative things to say about this film, but then again that would be the case with any movie. It doesn't have the Hollywood glare, nor did it have the budget, but if you're not so concerned about the "aesthetics", you will enjoy this movie. If you enjoyed the movie Constantine, you will enjoy this.

I saw the film last night. And i honestly don't think it was that bad. Obviously, the film had a few weaknesses and some of the dialog is a little embarrassing, but the majority of the acting was executed fairly well. The effects were great (remember, kiddies... truck-all budget.. a lot of crew working for free). I think an audience needs to cull out all their ideas of fantastic four and other insanely budgeted Hollywood trash films and go in with an open mind when approaching this film. I honestly found it enjoyable. Even the bad bits. um... just a quick note to the fool who said death proof sucked - You really need to lower your ridiculous standards if u thought that film was rubbish.

Aussie self-consciousness, whether it figures in support of this film or against it, ain't relevant. Gabriel is a great existential-goth-action piece about archangels and their nemeses warring in human form and grappling with their newfound human frailties. For budgetary reasons the film favours the goth and the existential elements over the action one, and it's definitely all the better for it, because what it ultimately develops which is sorely lacking from a lot of films whose stylings it's adopted (the Underworlds, the Crows, etc.) is a ton of genuine involvement. The unknown actors give universally fine performances, and in the case of bad guy Sammael (Dwaine Stevenson) a deeply charismatic and disturbing one.

I was a bit worried by the wordlessness and flat grey look of the earliest scenes, but as soon as we hit the first dialogue two-hander, I got pulled into the characters' situation. Also, the film never looks as grey again as it does right at the start, even if the digital video footage doesn't give much depth of field in this dark world.

The fights are spaced out, but they're very cool. The choreography is of The Matrix almost ESP-martial arts kind, yet filmed in nice clear wide shots with minimal editing (or editing that's well-disguised by passing obstacles) so you can see what's going on. Sometimes it's guns, sometimes hand-to-hand, sometimes both, with bullet time, slow-mo, folks zipping around bullets, all the nifty stuff that's been developed in this genre. There's also an exciting shootout in strobing darkness that reminded me of Equilibrium's gun cabal scenes.

The film Gabriel reminds me of most strongly, however, isn't something super recent. It's Blade Runner. In that film, replicant robots unsure of their identity and nascent emotions variously went into hiding, went insane or fought for their survival in a world that wasn't really theirs when push came to shove. Replace 'robots' with 'angels' and you've got the basic premise of Gabriel. The angels are sent to purgatory to get in amongst the humans and steer them in the right direction, or in the case of bad guys The Fallen, keep them corrupt. But to adopt the mortal form is to become vulnerable to human weakness, and that's what Gabriel has to struggle with as he tries to rally his angel pals who've failed before him for one last battle.

Freakin' good film!

This movie looks great and everyone on the film needs to be commended for doing such a bang up job with so little money. Its good that Sony took the punt and threw some money in to finish the visual effects because it would have made this ambitious project so much lesser for it without all those finishing touches. To that end you can say that this isn't really a low budget film - not by Australian standards if the rumor of a 5 million injection from Sony is true. My big gripe about this film though is that it could have gone somewhere bad ass but apart from looking cool it pretty much spins its wheels the whole time. This could have been a bad ass angel kill kill kill film but there ends up being lots and lots of talking instead and a few inventive but quick action scenes. But if you're an Aussie buy it because these guys deserve to get their due.