I’m not trying to be Gabriel about this
Before I dig into the meat and potatoes of this review you must understand something; I had high hopes for this film. I researched this film, I did everything except see it in the theaters because I missed it once it came out (so much work pleasing you people). When it was announced on Blu-ray I jumped at the chance and ignored any reviews on any other sites. I wanted this to be experienced without one single influencing opinion.
With all of that said, let’s begin.
The simple idea that God becomes displeased with a corrupt, dirty, awful world and wants to destroy it is simply awesome. Sure that sounds sick, but the concept is nothing short of well conceived. You’ve got one single angel protecting a group of people that are simply trying to stop/survive the oncoming apocalypse. Michael is protecting everyone, and leading them, against Gabriel and an army of angels. The reason Michael is protecting them is because of a girl named Charlie who is pregnant with a baby that will save humanity. If she has the baby then Gabriel loses. If they kill her and the child then Gabriel wins.
The problem is that beyond the concept the entire project pretty much falls apart. Michael, played by Paul Bettany, is the strongest character in the film. He knows what is going on and is leading people in the right direction. Bettany’s performance outshines everyone else. Why this guy isn’t featured in more action films is far beyond me. Anyway, his performance isn’t good enough to hold up one of the most amateur writing jobs on a feature film. Scott Stewart’s script is not only disjointed between awkwardly placed plot points, but his words are mostly cliche’. The one-liners delivered in the film are more predictable than one of Arnie’s movies from the 80s. Not only this, but the character development is simply atrocious, as we don’t get to know any of the characters well enough to give a damn about them. In this type of situation, which is common in zombie films (see Dawn of the Dead for details), where a group of people are stuck together you always get a sense of ‘who they are’ while they wait for the impending doom that is most certain to arrive. It simply doesn’t develop here.
Stewart wastes too many opportunities with ‘badass’ scenes of monsters (the ice cream guy scene is neat, but useless) and doesn’t explain the scope of the story and how deep it really runs. The only way to tell the story is to develop your characters and use them as vessels to move it all forward. It never ever happens.
What you get instead of storytelling is opportunities to show scenes of gore, language, special effects and oddly placed moments. One such moment? The first scene where Michael blasts his way through the front door of a illegally hidden gun storage. The blast hole is in the shape of a cross. Really? A cross? A grenade would make a cross shape? Really?
I’m very disappointed about this film, but I’m still in love with the concept. That’s as far as this love affair goes, though.
Shifting gears just slightly, the Blu-ray is great! The fight scenes are pretty, the bugs going through the SUV venting system are horrifically pretty; the Blu-ray is strong in terms of visuals and especially the audio. The audio will make you cringe when you hear the squishing sound effects coming to you in 5.1 DTS-HD. Everything about the presentation is excellent.
As for the features, here’s what you’re looking at:
Blu-ray and DVD
• Creating the Apocalypse
• Humanity’s Last Line of Defense
• From Pixels to Picture
Blu-ray Exclusive
• Bringing Angels To Earth: Picture-in-Picture
• movieIQ+sync and BD-Live connect you to real-time information on the cast, music, trivia and more while watching the movie
• A Digital Copy of the film (for PC, PSP®, Mac or iPod®)