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 unning
a scant 75 minutes from material only rich enough for 20 actual
minutes, "The Prophecy: Forsaken" continues the story of American
Allison (Kari Wuhrer) as she continues to run from bad angels,
Satan, and a mortal hitman played by Jason Scott Lee. The hitman, we
learn, wants to blow his brains out instead of blowing out
Allison's, which makes him quite a pain in the rear for his angel
masters, who want Allison dead for reasons that have nothing to do
with God. Boiling it down to its basics, "Forsaken" is 70 minutes of
walking, double talking, and more walking, punctuated by a single
action scene and a couple of moments that makes you smirk, which is
liable to be the only emotion the film will elicit -- other than
overwhelming boredom, that is.
"Forsaken" is a movie that, had you not seen
the previous installment in the "Prophecy" series (part 4, called "Uprising"),
then you wouldn't know what the hell is going on. Having seen
"Forsaken", I now know that writer/director/Romania's favorite
Godson Joel Soisson sliced up a single movie into two pieces, either
to get in on that whole back-to-back filmmaking gimmick that is all
the rave post-"Matrix"
sequels, or perhaps, more correctly, Soisson is one greedy bastard,
and wants to rip off what must, by now, be a tiny "Prophecy" fanbase
for as much money as he can before he goes on to inject mediocrity
into other, already mediocre film franchises.
There's no reason "Forsaken" should even last
75 minutes, just as there is no defensible reason "Forsaken" and
"Uprising" should be two movies. Take out all the endless posturing
by the bad guys and good guys, all the double talk meant to engender
complexity where none exists, and the two films, put together, would
barely scrape 90 minutes of viable content. Separate, they're
unwieldy messes, with "Uprising" getting by on Sean Pertwee's
affable personality, and the sequel barely squeaking by on my
general affinity for actor Jason Scott Lee, who only occasionally
wanders away from his Hawaiian jungle home for jobs in lifeless
direct-to-video franchises. (You can catch him being the best thing
about the "Dracula
2000" series, which is also under the peddling hands of one Joel
Soisson.)
In "Forsaken", Kari Wuhrer is once again on the
run, this time from renegade angels led by Tony Todd, here doing his
best Candyman impression in a long coat but, oddly enough, no meat
hook for hands. Then again, giving Tony Todd a meat hook for no
decipherable reason would have been twice as creative as Soisson and
company were capable of. As chronicled in the previous installment,
Allison has come into possession of the Lexicon, a book that is
literally still writing the history (and coming apocalypse) of man,
including the name of the anti-Christ who will usher in said
apocalypse. So Todd wants Allison dead, but hitman Lee is having a
crisis of conscience, and Satan is definitely pro-apocalypse, right?
Better yet, who cares.
In order to maintain a decent running time in
"Uprising", Soisson padded out the film with an oddball Buddy Cop
subplot whereby Satan, disguised as an Interpol cop chasing a serial
killer, is partnered up with grumpy cop Sean Pertwee and the duo
went about town in Pertwee's run-down car having Buddy Cop moments.
Meanwhile, in the background of "Uprising", Wuhrer's Allison ran
from guys in trenchcoats who like to pose for the camera. Now tasked
with padding out "Forsaken", Soisson goes with Jason Scott Lee's
hitman, who is on "one last job" for evil angel Tony Todd. It's all
as cliché and pointless as it sounds, unfortunately.
The
only real decent moments of "Forsaken" are whenever Allison comes
near Satan, played by John Light as a charmer with a wry sense of
humor. Whenever the two get together, I had fleeting thoughts of a
better movie about a dysfunctional romantic comedy whereby Satan
romances a human woman living in Romania for reasons unknown. Hey,
it could work. Tony Todd as the human-hating angel (he calls us
lowly mortals "monkeys") is less successful, if only because
Soisson's script tries too hard to make Todd meaningful. And the
ending just screams lame. No, not lame. I call "super lame" on
"Forsaken's" ending.
De facto female lead Kari Wuhrer does what she
can as Allison in both movies, but as the cliché goes, there's just
nothing for her to work with. Even so, there are moments between her
and Jason Scott Lee that makes you wish Soisson had done the
creatively correct thing (instead of the commercially-driven thing)
and just made a proper movie where Allison gets able assist from a
hitman and the duo must go on the run from angels, demons, and
Satan. Instead, we get two movies that never had a chance to stand
alone.
The results: "Uprising" is passable
entertainment, while "Forsaken" is 20 minutes stretched out into 75
minutes that feels like an eternity. On the plus side, at least Joel
Soisson isn't a completely incompetent director. Plus, there's Jason
Scott Lee, who I wish would stop doing such generic junk and get
back into decent productions already.
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