The Prophecy
Heaven’s been closed for the past two thousand years because of a war between the angels, with Christopher Walken’s Archangel Gabriel leading those eager to do away with the talking monkeys who have supplanted them in God’s affections, and now the War in Heaven has spilled out onto Earth. These angels aren’t the benign, mournfully watchful figures of Wings of Desire or City of Angels, let alone the make-a-wish do-gooders of Touched by an Angel. These are God’s hitmen, creatures that spend their whole existence praising God with one wing dipped in blood. They don’t grant wishes, they don’t make things better and you really, REALLY wouldn’t want to see one.
But, experienced as they are in laying waste to whole nations, they lack man’s capacity for true evil and need to find the darkest human soul to show them the way to win. Viggo Mortensen’s Lucifer isn’t too keen on the situation, fearing a victory for Gabriel’s side will result in Heaven becoming another Hell – and two Hells is one Hell too many for him. Stuck in the middle is Elias Koteas’ priest-turned-cop, who lost his faith not because Heaven showed him too little but because it showed him too much.
The similarities to writer-director Gregory Widen’s Highlander screenplay are apparent, although this boasts a much lower budget but infinitely superior direction, a good visual sense and some great locations. Much of the film’s strength is in its ideas and its dialogue: the plotting is at times perfunctory, Virginia Madsen’s schoolteacher takes little convincing of the Angelic threat and Walken probably has a little TOO much fun as Gabe, whether letting schoolchildren blow his horn or gleefully explaining “I’m an angel.I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why.” The ending too is more than a little awkward. But the good points outweigh the bad.