day 29 - The Prophecy

OK film fans, it's Friday Night and I'm not going to dig in too deep tonight, but I do have a gripe I'd like to share with you. It never ceases to amaze me the crap that Hollywood will trot out, shiny with the polish of a big budget and a marketing campaign equal to the price of a dozen indie films. Allow me to point out a prime example of this downward spiraling trend.

The Prophecy is an odd little apocalypse film about the war between opposing factions of angels in Heaven extending their battle to Earth. Along for the ride is a cop who suffered a conflict of faith just as he was to become an ordained priest (Elias Koteas), a villainous arch-angel Gabriel (Christopher Walken), humanities best friend Lucifer (Viggo Mortensen) and a small town school teacher caught in the middle (Virginia Madsen). Written and directed by Gregory Widen, whose cinematic contributions include Highlander and Backdraft, the film is uneven but admirable in its originality. It takes an unusual look at theological concepts of good and evil and the role of angels in Christian ideology. It also has the wisdom to realize this is all too silly to be taken seriously and as such has the good sense to give a wink to the audience to let them know this is going to be a bit campy. Released by midsized studio Dimension Films in 1995 it grossed just a tad over $16 million on a budget of $8 million, making it enough of a cult success to spawn four sequels of which two went directly to video. All in all a nice little hall for a fringe movie.

But Hollywood executives, being the most inept, soulless, brainless, greedy scumbags on the West Coast (Wall St has locked down the East Coast), have never been confused with individuals who have mastered the concept of "original" ideas. At some point a Sony/Columbia scumbag was handed the script for Legion, that I imagine smelled of feces and broken dreams, which was attached to a visual effect guru turned writer/director named Scott Stewart. Now, I usually try to see films before I go into a rant but after suffering through this trailer, which is easily the most unholy collection of film cliches ever assembled, I feel confident in stating this film is a giant turd sandwich.

However, thanks to the growing hordes of film goers who are attracted to glossy visual effects over originality, like weasels drawn to a shiny nickel instead of berries on the vine, this craptastic explosion of regurgitated horror film/video game scenes has made almost $22 million in one week. I can only pray we are spared a world forced to endure sequels and video games devoted to this apogee of cinematic greed.