Ten Statements About....THE PROPHECY III: THE ASCENT (1999)

Yep, Chris....you're born to be wild, alright...

“Last night, I dreamed the end of one history and the beginning of another. The darkness was met by the coming of a great warrior. I dreamed of you. You look smaller in person."

1) As cheap as The Prophecy II  looks in relationship to The Prophecy, this film looks cheaper still--in fact, it looks exactly like a microbudgeted direct-to-video sequel with almost no money for special effects or continuity (or, judging from the ‘What Does God Cares’ sign, to repaint a banner).

2) The fundamental flaw in this film is simply this: we don’t have any real point of view character to identify with.  Not only are the two leads only sketched in in the vaguest way (Steve Hynter’s Joseph gets more characterization than either David Buzzotta’s Danyael or Karyn Ann Buffer’s Magdelena), they don’t have nearly enough screen time for us to give a damn about these ciphers.

3) Boy, is Vincent Spano’s Zophael a boring ass villain.  At no point is he threatening or scary, and he simply doesn’t have the gravitas to convey the contempt for the ‘monkeys’ that Christopher Walken’s Gabriel had in the first two films.  He is never convincing as a threat, and the moment where he tries to swerve Magdalena does not work because he never comes off as sincere.  And the big bad he works for, Scott Clevedon’s Pyriel, is such a wuss Spano doesn’t even get the rub of being the lackey of someone cool.

"What do you mean I'm a boring bad guy?  Look at the size
of my rod!!!:

4) You know who does manage to actually fashion a character?  Brad Dourif.  Dourif’s unnamed character (he’s referred to simply as ‘Zealot’ in the credits) is little more than an extended cameo, but his one sorta monologue brings an incredible amount of nuance and energy that this film sorely needs.  Pity he’s given his pass outta here when less than ten minutes are up.

5) You know that this franchise is being forced to sustain itself beyond its sell-by date when they make the villain the hero...and with very little provocation.  Walken’s Gabriel is seen as Danyael’s Guardian Angel just because, and becomes redeemed in the end just because.  Admittedly, he has some of the better lines (and sells those lines with a skill Spano wishes he had), but his purpose in this film seems weirdly counterintuitive to how Gabriel has been portrayed up until this point.

6) I will give this film credit, though--for roughly ten minutes in the third act, director Patrick Lussier breathes a little life into this lifeless film.  It’s not surprising that most of this ten minutes involves tying in this mess with the first film and ends abruptly with the appearance of Pyriel.

7) I truly detest scripts that alternate between the worst cliches (“I’m not afraid of you.” “You should.”) and clumsy attempts at glib wit (“Genocide.  It happens now and again.”).  And this script by Joel Soisson and Carl Dupre seems to revel in its alternating between the two.

"Look at me!  I'm standing on top of a pile of bodies
while cosplaying Christ!  I must be bad ass!  Right?  Right?"

8) There’s a lot of choreographed fighting that I can’t help but think it’s just a punchy punchy run run....which draws more attention to how lightweight the plot of this film is.

9)  I can’t emphasize enough how dumb Pyriel is.  The big reveal of what he is is spoiled by an earlier scene of Joseph doing research, he’s given all this apocrypha without much explanation...and when he does appear, all he does is engage in a quippy conversation with Danyael and seemingly jumps onto the spear our ‘hero’ liberated from Zophael.  The guy does not justify being the ultimate horror that a trilogy of movies was built around.  Having Scott Clevendon portray him doesn’t help; when the thoroughly generic hero comes off as more vibrant than you, you’ve got a problem.

10) If you ask me, Karyn Ann Buffer was not cast for any acting skills--she doesn’t need any, as Magdelena is barely a stereotype or a cliche--but because quite frankly she has a spectacular ass that looks great in the jeans.

Overall...while there are glimmers of life in this cheapjack sequel, it’s overall a very aggravating slog even at less than ninety minutes.  At least it tries to wrap up the story neatly....

What do you mean I got two more sequels to get through?

Ten Statements About....THE PROPHECY II (1997)

"I'm an angel and I oppose Chris...when do I get my check?"

“Ironic, isn't it? An archangel needs a monkey to get a vision from God."

1) Wow....not even ten minutes into this less-than-ninety minutes sequel and two of the more three dimensional characters get written out--one just gets a voice over before bursting into a CGI flock of birds.

2) You remember how I praised the original film for taking the time to create a credible mythology and backstory for their angelic war?  Well, forget that.  This whole film has a strong whiff of ‘just go with it’ from beginning to end; everything, from the way Christopher Walken’s Gabriel returns to Earth to the way he is defeated, seems made up on the spot.

3) Jennifer Beals’ Valerie fares a little bit better than Virginia Madsen’s Katherine from the previous film--but that might be because there’s a lot less required of her.  She’s much more reactive than proactive, and admittedly there are some moments toward the end where Beals acquits herself quite well, including the final confrontation between her and Gabriel.

"So there are angels and they're at war...when do I get my
check?"

4) Here is where Walken just dives right into Full On Walken Mode--his Gabriel this time is all quirks, wisecracks and callbacks.  Even though he does spend some time paying lip service to his jealousy of humanity, the script by Matt Greenberg and Greg Spence has robbed a lot of that jealousy of the poetic nature originator Gregory Widen gave it in the first film.

5) I find it fascinating how all the life and humor of Steve Hynter’s Joseph has been sucked out of him in his one scene where he rants at Valerie and fills in some of the backstory.  My impulse is that Joseph was turned into a grump solely to make Gabriel the most vivid character in the film.

6) ....and that’s further borne out by how freaking dull the other angelic characters are.  Russell Wong’s Danyael, who is supposed to be the male lead of the flick, is colorless and without life (his most distinctive characteristic is his nationality, which sticks out amongst the all white angelic hosts), and Eric Roberts’ Michael is so sonombulistic that you can imagine Roberts watching the clock the whole time.

"So we decided to tear it down and put up a Galleria..."

7) So, ummm....that’s Eden?  I guess someone took the song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ literally.

8) I think nothing shows this film’s inconsistency--not only with its predecessor, but with itself--as much as Britney Murphy’s Izzy, who is supposed to be Gabriel’s companion in the way both Adam Goldberg and Amanda Plummer were in the first film.  The script is extremely fickle with Izzy--she acts all tortured and resistant like Goldberg and Plummer did when the script needs her to, and makes her act like a full on accomplice when it needs that.  It robs her of the little shading these previous characters had.

(Although admittedly, she has the best laugh line in the film.)

9)  Given how this is pretty much confined to Los Angeles proper (although I suspect a large portion of the film is Vancouver-Pretending-To-Be-LA), the film doesn’t have the beauty the first film had.  Quite the opposite--there’s a real sense of tawdriness and cheapness to the way it looks and feels.

10) Even though I have no idea whatsoever how the film ended up there (and I hated the last shot, which had that ‘nudge in the ribs’ sort of overobviousness), I did like the fate of Gabriel...and it’s one of the few times in this movie where Walken underplays the role.

Overall...even with a few rare grace notes, this makes all the mistakes the original avoided.  Probably best to avoid unless you’re committed to watch the whole series.

Ten Statements About....THE PROPHECY (1995)

"I'm a tweety bird...CAW! CAW!"

“Do you know how you got that dent, in your top lip? Way back, before you were born, I told you a secret, then I put my finger there and I said "Shhhhh!"

1) I love the care and attention with which director Gregory Widen maintains his mythology for this film, especially his ‘biology’ of the angels within.  Something as simple as the way the preferred state of rest for angels is perching like a bird adds a degree of otherness that gives the film something extra.

2) Yes, this film is carried mainly by Christopher Walken being Christopher Walken...but the intriguing thing is that this is Walken at the beginning of that phase in his career.  As such, Gabriel is a fully rounded character full of rage, pride, arrogance and jealousy with only peeks of the Walken-as-Walken quirkiness coming through (I’m looking at you, trumpet lessons scene...)

3) What I wouldn’t give for a film which has Viggo Mortensen’s Lucifer front and center.  Every second he’s on screen in the third act, your eyes are drawn to him.  And thankfully the script never loses sight of how Lucifer is motivated solely by selfish reasons.

(Hell, what I wouldn’t give for a film where Mortensen’s Lucifer and Peter Stomare’s First Of The Fallen from Constantine hang out together....)

4) I honestly don’t know if the whole Amerind aspect of the story has any point whatsoever.  I suspect you could take out everything related to the reservation and still have a full story.  Maybe it’s because Widen had cast Moriah Shining Dove Snyder (who should be called Shining Teeth considering how bright those choppers are) in the central role of Mary.  Given how limited Ms. Snyder’s acting range is, maybe the film would have been served better to have gone with a different actress and dispense with the gratuitious Amerind Ritualizing.

"He ain't human...so I ain't taking him to Mendy's!"

5) The thing that always bothers me about Elias Koteas as a leading man is how generic he is.  There’s nothing wrong with his performance per se--there are a couple of moments where he acquits himself quite well, in fact.  But he tends to melt into the background and remind me of other, better actors.  In this film in particular he keeps blurring into a sort of lumpen version of Adrien Brody crossed with Robert deNiro.

6) This film needed Steve Hynter’s Joseph.  The first half of this film is so dour that we needed someone like him to provide much needed comic relief.  Hynter plays Joseph well, as someone secure enough in his intelligence that he can goof a bit...and if the facts are the facts, he won’t disbelieve that.

7) I don’t know who the person was who thought Virginia Madsen would look good as a brunette is, but he needs to be stopped.

8)  ...although I wonder if my response to Madsen is due not to her appearance, but because her character Katherine is all over the place.  Widen’s script seems to force so many aspects on her--she’s weirdly placed in the role of surrogate mother to Mary, she’s got this teacher thing going, she has to be the love interest, she has to be an exposition dump--that she becomes diffuse.  Unlike Koteas’ Thomas, who does have a single strong throughline, Katherine is everything to everyone, and becomes nothing to no one.

"And then David Cronenberg snuck up behind me and
whispered 'Boo!'  He does that a lot."

9) I don’t know how I feel about Eric Stoltz’s Samuel.  I get the impression he’s trying to be a bad ass at times, and he fails...but there are other moments where he’s called on to be a manipulator, especially when he reaches Chimney Rock, and there he excels.  If Widen had lessened the former and emphasized the later, we might have ended up with a more effective character.

10) It’s kind of sad that this was Widen’s only theatrical film as a director.  Throughout this film, there are lots of striking visual moments that indicate that he could’ve been a real contender, even if he stuck to genre filmmaking.

Overall...a rather striking horror film both visually and narratively in spite of its flaws.  Granted, I wish that Dimension hadn’t tried to force a franchise out of this one little gem (four sequels!), but taken on it’s own it’s worth a watch.