The Prophecy II (1998)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Overseas FilmGroup

Runtime: 83 mins

Format: BluRay

Plot: Arch Angel Gabriel returns to try to destroy the future hope for the human race he despises so much, with the help of a suicidal teen girl and the opposition of the angel Danyael.

Review: There's just something about religious thrillers that I love. I'm not particularly a very religious person, but I love all that mythology that we hear about while growing up, and its for that reason that, a few issues aside, I really loved the first Prophecy movie (Or God's Army, depending on where you live in the world). That first one was theatrical and all following entries (and there are quite a nice handful of them) were Direct-to-Video, so that probably means they can't stack up to it, right?

Well you could kind of say that I suppose, but then you would be wrong. In The Prophecy II (sometimes found with the subtitle Ashtown and sometimes not), Lucifer spits disgraced Arch Angel Gabriel (as played to perfection by Christopher Walken returning to the role, not scared by the lower budget) out of Hell for reasons that are never really touched upon other than “Not even Hell will have you.”, and the fallen angel resumes his War on Heaven, where he left off in the previous movie. This time, he's after a woman pregnant with a Nephilim, which is a baby born of both human and Angel, as it has been foretold in a new Prophecy made by Elias Koteas' character from the first movie (but played by a different actor here, and back being a monk again) that a Nephilim will end the Second War in Heaven and return peace to the Universe. However, the woman is being aided by the Warrior Angel Danyael, who was the one that actually impregnated her.

Initially I never liked this Terminator-wannabe of an entry nearly as much as I did the first movie, but over the years and upon several re-watches it really grew on me to the point where I actually now enjoy it a bit more, but just by a sliver.

With the first movie I couldn't really argue with anyone that felt it was very slow-moving and boring, however The Prophecy 2 is a much more action-packed and fast-paced entry, as this one is essentially just one long movie-length chase scene. As mentioned, this is the 'Terminator' entry in the series, what with Gabriel chasing a mild-mannered woman through the city during the night in order to kill her before she gives birth to mankind's savior, and the entire movie is pretty much 'run, hide, get found by the methodical bad guy, run, hide, get found by the methodical bad guy, and just keep repeating'. I know that doesn't sound very interesting, and the repetitiveness of it was one of the reasons that I didn't like it very much my first time watching it, but over time and during the course of several re-watches, I grew to appreciate the faster pace of the 'cat-and-mouse' plot because, as repetitive as it gets, there's at least always something exciting happening and the movie never gets dull, making it easier to digest for the average person than the slower-paced first movie probably is.

It also helps, at least for me, that despite the faster pace it still manages to expand upon the excellent world-building mythology that I loved so much in the first movie and couldn't say enough good things about in my review for that one. The strongest point of the entire Prophecy movie series, to me, is the excellent world-building background mythology that keeps getting fed to us in each movie. So much so in fact, that I'm still picking up on missed morsels of it in dialog here and there each movie, even after umpteen rewatches, that just keeps adding to the experience for me and gives me something new each time I watch them. Even after five movies, I feel the potential of this series has only just begun to be tapped and this is a movie universe I would love to keep getting more sequels for, so I can spend more time exploring it.

The characters that populate this movie also keep it interesting and, if anything, I think I actually like more than the characters in the first movie. Once again everyone acts their part perfectly, but this time Christopher Walken, while just as badass as ever, is matched in terms of acting by some of the other actors, who mostly all turn in better performances than you would expect to find in a Direct-to-Video sequel. Jennifer Beals plays the main female lead and while she was pretty bland and forgettable at the start of the movie, once the action really starts getting going and she gets into the thick of the Terminator-esque plot, that's when she really starts to shine, with my favorite moments of her being when she goes head to head against Christopher Walken's Gabriel himself, as those two played off of one another so well. Also, a young Brittney Murphy did an excellent and very enjoyable job for one of her first starring roles, taking on the role of Gabriel's undead slave that he brings back to life after she tries to commit suicide with her boyfriend, as he still yet can't comprehend human technology, nor how to drive a vehicle and needs her assistance, culminating in some pretty hilarious moments. Even Eric Roberts pops up in the second half of the movie as the fellow-famed Arch Angel, Michael – you know, the one that ultimately beat back Lucifer and sent him down to Hell during the first War? Now he's in charge of looking after the supposed-safe haven of the infamous 'Garden' of Eden, which has since gotten a modern-day industrial makeover, and he plays the role in such a way that you're not quite sure if he can be trusted or not, and it leads to one of my favorite and more suspenseful sequences in the entire movie.

This entry is also much darker then the first movie was, both in tone as well as the filming style. Where that one took place primarily during day scenes, this one takes place entirely over the course of one night, and even though in the end when the good guys win, we as viewers (in addition to the characters themselves) are still left with a sense of foreboding doom to come, and ends things off on a bit of a bleak cliffhanger that won't be resolved until the third movie (and final movie for this specific story arc, as The Prophecy 4 and 5 deal with entirely all-new characters and an entirely all-new story). I also still really love the portrayal of the Angels in these movies. For those familiar with the hit TV show Supernatural, they are almost identical to that of how they are portrayed in that show, which is one of the reasons I love them on Supernatural (especially in Season 4 when they were first introduced, it was essentially a season-long crossover between Supernatural and The Prophecy, however now in Season 9 I'm feeling they're dragging the bottom of that well a bit, but I suppose all of that is for a different type of review).

My only big complaint is that with the runtime so short and the movie so fast-paced, it zoomed by and was over before I really had time to process most of what I had just watched, which means it definitely requires multiple viewings to pick everything up, especially where that excellent world-building dialogue is concerned. An extra 10-15 minutes would have been nice to break up the frequency, in addition to the repetitiveness, of the chase scenes and perhaps that time could have been used to give the human characters a tad bit more solid characterization; While the Angels and the whole concept of the various wars in Heaven were all given more-than-satisfactory backstories and characterizations, the human characters were left in the dust a little bit and felt a tad underdeveloped.

While The Prophecy II still has a few faults of it's own, despite my initial gut reaction the very first time I watched it, I actually now feel it's an even stronger and more enjoyable movie than the first Prophecy flick, if only slightly, which is saying quite a bit considering that one went to Theaters and this one was Direct-to-Video. A faster pace, better characters, further world-building, and yet another excellent portrayal of the main villain by Christopher Walken all make this a very worthy sequel in the Prophecy series.

After tying up a couple loose ends from the first movie that promises to make the next entry different from anything that's come in these first two installments, and ending things off on a sort of cliffhanger-style note of forebodingness to come, I really can't see how anyone that enjoyed these first two movies wouldn't be excited to see how the conclusion to this first story arc will play out in The Prophecy 3: The Ascent.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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The Prophecy (1995)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Overseas FilmGroup

Runtime: 98 mins

Format: BluRay

Plot: The rebelling angel Gabriel comes to Earth to collect a soul which will end the stalemated Second War in Heaven, and only a former priest, a school teacher, and a little girl can stop him.

Review: I grew up in a pretty religious family setting, so even though I am no longer a religious person I still find myself loving movies (especially thrillers) with dark religious overtones, and out of those movies The Prophecy series (alternately named God's Army in parts of the world) is easily my favorite.

In the first movie of this long-running series, we follow a priest who has lost his Faith and turned cop and a small community school teacher as they get caught up in the middle of a Second War in Heaven, this one caused by the Arch Angel Gabriel who is jealous that God loves humans more then the Angels and he wants to make things 'As they were', and many of the angels have joined him, and a prophecy has been made about a 'dark soul' that will tip the tides of the War, so Simon (one of the good angels) finds this evil soul and hides it in the body of a little girl before he dies, and it's that girl that the main characters have to protect from Gabriel, who is trying to get his hands on that soul.

This is one 'Talky' movie and there's not a whole lot of action to keep the pace going, however I still find myself loving this low budget romp quite a lot, and the reasons for that are many – For instance, I love the way they portray the Angels when on Earth in their human form. They look human, but there's just something...off...about them. The way they talk, the way they act and compose themselves, the way they sit perched like a bird on the edges of objects, it's all slightly off and a bit unnaturally creepy. Anyone who watches the TV show Supernatural will actually have a good idea as to what I'm talking about here, as Supernatural took a page out of this movie's book in terms of their portrayal of the Angels, especially when they were first introduced way back in Season 4. Hell, that show came complete with a group of rebelling angels that are angry that God loves the 'talking monkeys' more then them (as Gabriel refers to them as in these movies as well), and on Supernatural they were portrayed in human form pretty much exactly as they are in this movie, from the way they talk to the way they act to even the various powers they have (teleporting, bringing someone back from the dead (or near-dead in this case), knocking someone unconscious just by tapping their head, creating fire out of nothing, being able to smell humans nearby, plus many more surprises). It really does seem like Supernatural, at least in its earlier days of Seasons 4 and 5, used this movie as inspiration for their portrayal of Angels. But I've gotten a bit off point here, hahaha, bottom line is, I love the way the Angel characters were portrayed while on-screen, adding a slight unnatural air about things.

Of course it's helped by the actors who did great with their material, with Christopher Walken as Gabriel stealing the show and probably being his most memorable role for me. From his anger and frustration at the humans, to his genuine sadness over not being in God's graces anymore, to his confusion at human technology - the guy was on-point every step of the way and if nothing else, these movies are worth watching just for his portrayal of this character alone. Joining him is also a cameo by Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer himself, another shining portrayal that even though he only has about 5 minutes of total screentime, still manages to turn in one very memorable and downright creepy as hell performance. I also loved the twist of the main human characters having to go to Lucifer, the embodiment of all that is Evil, in order to beat the villain of the movie – after all, as Lucifer even says himself, if Gabriel takes over Heaven it'll just become another Hell and that's one Hell too many for the ruler of the One and Only True Hell. There's also Elias Koteas (Casey Jones from the first and third live-action Ninja Turtles movies) as the main priest-turned-cop character and Virginia Madsen (main chick from the first Candyman) as the school teacher that he teams up with to keep the little girl safe from Gabriel who pursues them across the New Mexico desert, and both of them do good enough in their roles, though nothing too stand-outish like Walken and Mortensen, and likewise Eric Stoltz as the Angel Simon does his job well, but his role here required him to be far more lowkey then some of the other roles. The only real sour point when it comes to the acting is that of the main little girl herself, as she was just downright painful to watch, especially during her scenes of being possessed by the Dark Soul that's being hidden inside of her – probably one of the worst child actors I've ever seen and it certainly brings the movie down a bit.

Also raising the movie up fairly high in my eyes is the eerie and perfectly-toned musical score, as well as the excellent background mythology. Many people may find the movie boring, as the action scenes are few and far between, and most of the movie is just talking, however, personally, I loved that talking because it was never pointless talking just to fill space in the movie – almost every scene's dialog did something to help establish the background mythology of this movie's universe in terms of the Angels and the Wars in Heaven, to the point where even now on my ompteenth re-watch, I still pick up on lines of dialog that add something new to the mythology that I never did notice before in any of the times I've watched it. So yes, while I can't fault anyone for finding the movie slow and boring, it didn't personally bother me because I just found myself getting wrapped up in all that mythology and world-building. Plus, like I said above, Walken's excellent performance is worthy of your full attention whenever he's on-screen (which is often), so if nothing else then that should keep your interest.

The parts of the movie however that I felt bogged things down a tad and the more times I re-watch it the more and more I feel like just fast-forward through, are the parts dealing with the Dark Soul itself. Sure, the idea of it is fine and I'm ok with it being the crutch of the movie's plot, but the stuff I hated was once it was put inside the little girl and she starts getting possessed by it and drawing violent pictures, speaking in the soul's voice, getting sick, and the eventual exorcism that the climax of the movie is built around, all of that stuff I could have done without and a large part of that is, as I said above, the performance of the little girl as she was just brutal to watch and sit through during those scenes, but another reason is that it kind of felt out of place with everything else going on in the movie and came across almost like they needed more stuff to pad the movie out with so they took excerpts from some unfinished script sitting in their vault and added them into this movie.

As far as religious-themed thrillers go, The Prophecy series (or the God's Army series, depending on where you live)is one of my favorites, partially because of the excellent better-then-average world-building mythology, partially because of the unique (at the time) portrayal of Angels, and partially because of the excellent and memorable performances from some of the (again, at the time) virtually unknown actors. However the little girl's acting will cause you to cringe every time she speaks, and I really can't argue with anyone who says the movie is slow because it very much is, however like I've said above, that didn't personally bother me at all because I was so into the mythology they were spewing at me during those scenes.

Looking back, it's actually kind of an enigma as to how this low-key drama/thriller movie spawned 4 sequels because it just seems so random when compared to some of the other series' that gave way to large franchises, however I'm glad that it did because the series as a whole is one I enjoy immensely and love revisiting at least once a year.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

 

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