Fallen - Le néphilim

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.

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.

Unlike the previous reviewer, I found this made-for-TV movie, "Fallen", to be interesting and well done. Though I think it would have worked better as a mini-series, and certainly needs to be fleshed out more, as a 2-hour made-for-TV movie, it certainly wasn't bad. Interesting concepts, and not overly religious (though it is based on "Fallen Angels", of course.) Seeing as it was A.) Free, B.) Made-for-TV, and C.) done without a HUGE budget, it was entertaining and kept me interested. The plot did meander at times, and the main characters weren't built up enough, but this is TV we're talking about. This isn't a big-budget movie, nor were there any "major" stars, though a few of the supporting actors are well-known. Overall, it's worth watching, and if you have TiVo (or your cable company's DVR), recording it to watch later isn't a bad idea.