Geez, who the hell knows? ANOTHER
prophecy has been made that God will write ANOTHER chapter of
Revelations in a book called the Lexicon that will give whoever holds
it the advantage in... I guess the Second War of Angels?
Belial, one of Satan's ex-cronies, is
after the Lexicon so he can create a new Hell... which will make him
more powerful than everyone else. Yeah, I don't know. The more I
think about it the less sense it makes. But like always, Satan saves the day
and entrusts the Lexicon to Kari Wuhrer, who continues the
franchise's proud tradition of featuring heroes of RAPIDLY declining
quality. Oh, and she's also barely helped through her journey by the
ghost of the angel Simon from the first movie. Ghost of an angel... I
think that might be the dumbest idea in the supernatural genre.
Get for the EPIC CONCLUSION
of the Prophecy saga with A Ghoul Versus The Prophecy:
Forsaken! Also, why did they quit numbering these damn things?
Our film opens with recycled footage
from the first movie of the Father doing whatever the hell he was
doing to make God's Word appear in the unwritten chapter of the
Lexicon. This is too much for him as he dies of a heart attack and
they STILL don't explain this. Was God working through him? If so,
WHY? These are important questions, writer of the movie! I'm not even sure what the point of
that was, probably to pad out the movie's run time because this bad
boy is SHORT even for Straight to Video. We cut to a little girl
playing ball on the streets of Bucharest, Romania where our story
takes place. Her ball rolls into traffic as she looks over and sees
Satan watching her, but she doesn't even FLINCH. Wow, how bad of a
place is Bucharest to live where seeing the Prince of Lies doesn't
even merit a reaction?
He walks over to her and starts
conversing in Romanian. They don't bother to subtitle their
conversation so we have no idea what they're saying. The little girl
starts walking into heavy traffic after her ball, as we cut to Kari
Wuhrer watching her from a balcony across the street. She's STILL in
Romania? Even after the last film when Satan told her it wasn't over
and more angels would come for her, she just... stayed where she'd be
easy to find? Things end badly for the girl as- you'll NEVER
believe this- gets hit by a car just in case you were confused what
movie franchise you were watching here.
Kari runs down and talks to the girl in
Romanian. Hey director, remember us? The audience? We'd like to know
what's going on! As Kari, leaves she bumps into an ominous
looking man played by Jason Scott Lee who is most famous for
portraying Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
Actually, he's ONLY famous for
portraying Bruce Lee. His IMDB page is one depressing read. Lee
stares at her as if to say: “Why is SHE the hero of this movie?”. We learn Lee is playing a hitman named
Dylan, who is working for a Seraphim Angel named Stark who is played
by the GOD of B-level horror movies Tony Todd. And
just like that this movie is unbelievably awesome!
Stark wants Dylan to kill Kari, as he
doesn't want to get his own hands dirty doing it. However Dylan
doesn't want to do this, so he tries to turn the tables by killing
himself. No, don't do it! Just
hang on for two more years and you'll get to be in Balls of Fury with
Christopher Walken! This suicide is in vain, as Stark is
easily able to bring him back to life and tells Dylan he WILL do as
he's told. Dylan, proving he's not stupid, listens to him because the
surgeon general warns not listening to Tony Todd WILL result in your
horrific death.
Dylan bursts into Kari's apartment and
points a freaking assault rifle at her. His acting is... not good.
He reads every line like he's reading it for the first time and
doesn't understand the context of it at all. But anyway, he finds he
can't kill her as he gets a feeling she's “different”. She tells
him she's been entrusted with something very important so he takes
her for a ride in his car to hide her. He tells her about Stark but
doesn't know what side Stark is working for.
Stark enters Kari's apartment to look
for the Lexicon as it seems Dylan has failed him. He finds the book
hidden in the wall, but in a strange scene finds the pages have been
replaced by phone sex ads. Huh?! I
watched this over and over again trying to figure out if there's a
joke or a reference here. All in vain. Kari and Dylan face off to see who can
act worse, a battle where the loser is US. They arrive at the
apartment of a hooker Dylan frequents, where she's already with a
client au naturale. Kari's reaction to seeing them makes me think she
got mixed up and thought this was a comedy movie.
Dylan takes a bunch of stuff from the
hooker like a wig and toiletries. In a change of pace, the dialogue
in this scene is almost impossible to understand not because of their
accents, but BECAUSE THE SOUNDTRACK GOT CRANKED TO 11 AND DROWNS
EVERYTHING ELSE OUT. Leaving the apartment, Dylan notices a
bunch of men in trenchcoats around. Kari tells him they're just
gypsies, but he says they're [inaudible]. Ah good, we're back to the
actors mumbling. A brief chase scene breaking out, Kari asking
why Dylan doesn't just shoot them. He say it's pointless because even
if he can land the killshot more will come. She asks what the
killshot is and he replies right between their eyes, which is their
Third Eye.
Why would Stark have taught him this?
Has Dylan been killing angels for him? Why? And why wouldn't he just
shoot Stark if he knows how to kill angels? Hmm, it's kind of
late in the series to hope for any answers isn't it? Because angels
hunt by taste and smell, he has Kari douse herself in perfume and
take iron pills which will change the taste of her blood. He also has
her put on the wig because thrones- Oh, thrones! That's what he was
mumbling earlier. He tells us they're just grunts too dumb to tell
humans apart. Dylan has Kari take off while he tries to hold the
thrones back. This tremendously backfires as they kick ass his and
take him back to Stark.
Kari is able to waltz right past the
thrones after she passes their smell and lick test. Eww. I am NOT
reviewing any movies with licking in them any time soon. She takes a taxi back to Satan's house
from the previous movie, this time paying the cabbie to wait for her
because walking home last time must have really sucked. She
has a little chat with Satan where he reveals in a few hours the
Lexicon will name the Antichrist and ohhh dear. The Antichrist? We're
throwing the Antichrist in here now?
Remember way back when in the first
movie when they said the final chapter of Revelations foretold of a
dark soul on Earth that would win the war for whomever got it first?
But this was later changed that a child would be born of an angel and
a human that'd bring peace to both sides of the war? But then was
later changed AGAIN to the child would stop the coming on an angel
would would replace God? But then was changed AGAIN AGAIN to the
final chapter would contain all the information for a side to win the
war? Now it's the Antichrist, so forget ALL
of that. The Book of Revelation is going to have more chapters than a
Dan Brown novel by the time all is said and done.
Satan tells Kari having this knowledge
makes her the courier for the biggest weapon of mass destruction
ever. He goes on to say the factions in Heaven are
concerned about this, but are bound by rules regarding murder. They
can bypass these by using assassins like Dylan. I... I really don't
know anymore. They're just contradicting EVERYTHING right and
left at this point. Gabriel and Zophael were rebels, so logically
they wouldn't have been bound by these rules. Stark is also a rebel,
so why is he? As Kari mulls this over, Satan sits down and
pulls out a Twinkie. It's sad
when the devil has to make ends meet shilling for Hostess.
She tells her how much he loves them,
and she asks maybe it's because of the angel food cake? What?!
Twinkies aren't angel food cake, they're sponge cake! I can buy
completely betraying everything in the franchise, but I'm not going
to stand for this dammit! You went too far Prophecy: Forsaken,
YOU WENT TOO FAR! Alright, enough of that. Kari and Satan
prattle on for awhile longer and it goes nowhere, so Kari leaves just
in time to see her taxi taking off. What is WITH cabbies in Romania?
Kari starts walking in what I begrudgingly admit is a great shot.
This is a pretty film, visually.
Thrones start appearing and following
her. She takes off running, coming across a funeral procession which
matches the one she saw in the vision Satan gave her at the end of
Uprising. Ohhh, and the body isn't hers but the little girl at the
beginning of the movie. The vision in the last movie made it seem
like it was going to be Kari's, so that's a nice little fakeout.
She's able to blend into the funeral march because the thrones are
too stupid to recognize her by sight. Oh
snap, is Kari an Assassin? That would actually explain a LOT.
We get a flashback to when Kari was by
the little girl's side, and the little girl is now speaking in
English, telling Kari she has a message for her. Okay, and that
message is...? I guess it wasn't important because we
cut back to Stark and Dylan. Dylan asks why the angel just doesn't go
kill her and learns because she's at the church they can't harm her
there. Which is one of the few moments this movie remains consistent
with something from the earlier films. Stark says if Dylan chickens
out again to lead her off the holy grounds and they'll take care of
it themselves.
Kari sits in the church wondering how
she can get out of this movie without them noticing, because her
audition for General Hospital is in a few hours and she really
needs to get ready. She hears a voice saying it's cold,
and turns around to find herself facing... Samara?!
Now you're REALLY screwed Kari. Wait, no it's just the
little girl again. The girl says, and I'm quoting here: “I died for
you Allison so you could use my funeral to escape them”. You know,
I'm getting a LITTLE tired of these movies where a character is able
to predict every single little detail down to PERFECT timing.
SO. If Satan is able to see the future
is SUCH detail that he'd know every single event that would happen
from the girl's death to Kari running into her funeral, why aren't
the angels after him instead of the stupid Lexicon? The angels have
no problem taking on God, how's messing with Satan going to be any
different? The little girl tells Kari she was to
wait in the cold ground because “the bad angels don't want us in
Heaven”. I think this as confirmation that the stalemate from the
first movie is still going on and all human souls are trapped on
Earth, which really makes the prophecies from the second and third
movies seem utterly pointless now.
The little girl leaves to see if anyone
is interested in making The Ring 4,
her parting words for Kari to not give up the book no matter what.
Dylan enters the church around this time and Kari is suspicious of
him, as she should be. But she still trusts him enough to launch into
her life story, which is so boring he goes outside to check things
out. We can see thrones are amassing outside. Dylan says they
have to leave now as there will be hundreds my morning. He goes to
start his car, telling her to come running when she hears the engine.
Is Dylan playing her or not? My guess is yes, because this really
isn't the kind of franchise with noble heroes.
Kari rushes to the car but the
passenger side door is locked and Dylan refuses to look at her.
Called it! The thrones take her back to her apartment where Stark is
waiting for her. He says all he wants is the last page of the Lexicon
because in three hours it's going to reveal the name of the
Antichrist. I'd ask HOW we knows this, but it's Tony Todd so that's
all the answer I need. If Todd had orchestrated that ridiculous
“making a little girl kill herself to provide a funeral march for
Kari to hide in” plan, I'd TOTALLY buy it.
Stark wants to kill the child because
he thinks Armageddon is a bad idea. Kari won't give him any
information, so he... lets her go? But just earlier he told Dylan he
was going to kill her, which makes sense because at one point he says
it's easier to extract information from dead bodies than live ones. But I'm sure he knows what he's doing.
Kari runs into Satan at the park, and once again Satan realizes the
screenwriter has no way to progress the story so he does Exposition
Duty again. Satan is really helpful like that. He asks if she got his
message from the girl, and the response makes me CRINGE.
Kari says he didn't have to kill her
with all the emotion and caring as if he'd stepped on an ant. I mean
come on, Satan let an innocent girl die so Kari could play Assassin's
Creed. She should be PISSED about that! But they don't care so I'm wasting my
time. Satan tells her Stark's plan is to prevent Armageddon so the
humans that survive it can't go to Heaven to receive God's love. He'd
rather the human race stays alive so they'll keep degrading
themselves in the eyes of the Lord, while the Angels remain his
Chosen Ones.
That's a fine plan, because it
continues the tradition of Gabriel in the first movie wanting angels
to remain over humans. What I don't get about it, and this is a
recurring question I have throughout the series, is what is God doing
during all of this? He has to know one of His angels is trying to
totally betray His plans, especially since Stark ISN'T a rebel so
they'd like be in close contact since seraphims are one of the
highest in the angel hierarchy. I really could rant about this all
day though, as it really is the biggest plot hole in all the movies.
God is just so ill defined and usually ends up being a deus ex
machina when the writer has run out of ideas.
Kari asks what's Satan's stake in all
of this, learning he wants Armageddon to happen so he can collect all
the souls of all the people who don't go to Heaven. This all makes
sense, I'm liking this a lot. Unfortunately, this comes to a crashing
halt as we get the weirdest scene in probably the entire franchise
and possibly a pick for top twenty WTF scenes of ALL TIME. Kari walks
by a crazy looking guy man, who yammers something at her in Romanian.
She goes “huh?”, he looks at her and hisses “Angel!” then
pulls out a knife and STABS HER IN THE STOMACH AND SHOULDER!
WHO THE FUCK IS THIS GUY?! Kari falls
to the ground when suddenly Simon's ghost appears over her (and he
looks NOTHING like Simon, they seriously couldn't find a homeless
looking guy with a beard in all of Romania to play him?) and tells
her she's not through yet and it's time to fight back. So Kari gets
up, kicks the shit out of the guy, and SNAPS HIS GODDAMN NECK like
she's Solid Frickin' Snake! You know the icing on this cake of sheer
insanity? IT'S NEVER MENTIONED OR ADDRESSED AGAIN! Seriously,
who the fuck was that guy?!
That drug induced hallucination over,
Kari returns to the movie and sees Tony and Dylan breaking into a
house near the park. Earlier, Tony had Dylan study Kari's daily
routine and realized she came to the park everyday. He was able to
deduce she kept the Lexicon's pages somewhere around there. When he
found out the house had been deserted for a year, he figured that had
to be the place.
She sneaks into the basement of the
house, taking the pages out of a wine barrel. She's just in time to
catch them reveal the name of the Antichrist, Mykael who will have
four distinct marks on his face. The pages write themselves? What was
the Father doing then in the last movie? It clearly showed the words
appearing AFTER he was speaking. Ah whatever though, this movie has
left the world of sense LOOOOOOOOOOONG behind after what we just saw.
Upstairs Stark smells Kari, smashing
through the floor to try to capture her. She takes off upstairs,
getting a decent head start on him. He follows her, finding she's
dropped a bunch of the pages all over the stairs to stall him as he
has to stop and check every single page to make sure it's not the
Antichrist one. Gotta give it to her, that's DAMN CLEVER. This would have worked on anyone else,
but we are dealing with Tony Todd here. He sees through this and
confronts her on the roof, Dylan right behind. Now I want you to
think here, what's the stupidest way to resolve this face off you
could possibly think of?
Satan saving the day again? Nah, that's
been done to death.
Dylan breaking out the killshot on
Stark? That's not stupid, that actually makes sense.
A crazy guy appears out of nowhere and
stabs Stark? Sure, why not?
What's that? Have Stark reveal Kari is
half angel? Damn, why are you sitting here reading this when you
should be finishing the script to Children of the Corn 10?
Yeah, Kari's a Nephilim. Hold on, hold
on there. SIMON is her father. Um... either ghosts can have kids or
Simon did this when he was still alive, which is the more likely
option. I don't even want to think of how this fits into the previous
movie with her “parents”, but that's just because the writer
didn't want to either. At least this does led to one of my
questions getting answered, Stark taught Dylan about killshots so he
could kill Kari. Nice, why couldn't they have applied this logic to
everything else in the movie? And if you're wondering, Stark thinks
heart ripping is too messy, which is why it's not on the table. Plus
they already did that in the last movie. HAW HAW!
We do the sequence where Dylan keeps
switching his gun sights between Kari and Stark, unable to decide who
to shoot. Finally he shoots Kari, but not in her head, rather
multiple rounds to her chest. This sends her flying off the roof, the
pages in her hands getting scattered to the wind and blown everywhere
as Stark screams in rage.
Kari lands on a wall, just like we saw
in her vision in the last movie. This is also quite similar to
Gabriel falling on the fence in the Prophecy II, for those
who've been paying attention. She comes to, seeing Simon smiling down
on her from a nearby balcony. She sadly doesn't scream up at him:
“Yeah, that doesn't make up
for you haunting me my entire life and making me think I'm crazy,
asshole!”
Across town, a small boy catches one of
the pages falling from the sky. If you don't know what happens next,
I'm not sure movies are your thing but I still appreciate you
reading. Of course it's the Antichrist page, and
of course his name is Mykael Paun with four marks on his face. His
mother calls him as he runs to her and... wait, it's over?!
Cue the credits?!?
That was certainly abrupt. I guess
Stark and Dylan weren't that to important in the movie, so we don't
need any kind of resolution for them. Or Kari for that matter, she
was only THE STAR OF THIS FREAKING THING! This movie reminds me of Julianne
Moore's The Forgotten, something I'll absolutely be reviewing
someday. Without giving any spoilers, both films start off
interesting enough and then completely and utterly fall apart harder
than a Ford Pinto in a 1970s police movie. Seriously what happened at the end
here? You can't even call it an end, it literally just stops. The bad
guys are still on top of the house and Kari is lying vulnerable on a
fence. They must have worn themselves out throwing insane plot twists
at us and then said “Screw it, I'm exhausted. CUT!”
For its truckload of flaws, the
Prophecy 3 ended on a great note and sent the franchise into
the sunset with style. This movie dug up its corpse, dressed it up in
goofy outfits, and paraded it around Weekend At Bernie's
style. And yet, this film was still better
than the last one, at least marginally. Somehow, despite what happens
in the last few minutes, it's a much better story that kept my
attention through the entire thing. Tony Todd delivers an A+
performance like he always does, we need to clone this man because
totally understanding horror and thrillers and how to approach them
is coded into his DNA. If you're not a fan of the Prophecy
movies, I'd say stay far away especially since you'd have to watch
the last one to even attempt to make sense of this. If you are a fan,
I'd still say stay away but you won't because you're vested in this
series already and have to see what happens next.
Like the Saw, Paranormal Activity,
or even the classic Jason and Freddy movies odds are if you've made
it to the third one you'll keep watching no matter how bad they are.
At that point it's not even about the movie anymore as much as it
going to see them for fan service or the series trademark gimmicks.
You go to see what wacky trap Jigsaw has rigged up or what kind of
overkill Jason has planned for his latest naked woman victim. I think out of everything, this is
where the last two movies failed the hardest. There is so little fan
service in these.
It was so cool in the Prophecy 3 to
see Mary all grown up or Madge from the diner talking to Gabriel
about Rachel. It was a largely terrible movie but those moments were
great and I'll always remember them over whatever the story was
supposed to be about. These last two movies had brief nods to Joseph,
Simon, and some of the angels' methods, but it was all VERY weak.
Hell, the only car collision in this movie was off camera! That's a
sin!
The first movie came out in 1995, and
the last two movies came out on its tenth anniversary. Next year will
mark it's twentieth anniversary, and sadly I can find no plans to do
anything to honour this. Even after these last two movies, I'd love
to see more because, hey, I'm vested. It's likely if they ever did
another one it'd likely be a dreaded Hollywood “reboot”, but
personally I'd make another sequel and try to give this once great
series some desperately needed closure.
The Prophecy: Revelations. Yes,
it's one of THE MOST OVERUSED subtitles in all of movies but here it
actually makes sense. I would combine the two storylines in an all
cards on the table battle for everything in the form of Danyael Jr.
vs. Mykael, winner take all. I'd have Gabriel and Stark on Danyael's
side and Belial's on Mykael's. Why Belial? Since Satan wants
Armageddon to happen, he'd release him from Hell to aid Mykael.
However Stark would be the ultimate bad guy, as (spoilers for a movie
that doesn't exist and will never happen!) after they defeat Mykael
he turns on everyone. Whoops, this review turned into
fanfiction again. I hate it when that happens.
And with that, we bid a pretty fond
farewell for the Prophecy saga. I hope you had as much fun
reading these as I did reviewing them. I really enjoyed doing an
entire series back to back to back and will definitely be doing more
of these.
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