Fallen (2006)

Lucinda (Addison Timlin) gets into trouble and goes to "Sword and Cross" aka bad teen school. Here she goes googly-eyed over two boys and discovers that her and just about everyone there is a fallen angel. Now if you think that is a plot spoiler, you slept through the opening monologue reinforced by the classroom scenes. Actually there are no such thing in theology but if you create a series around it, it must be true.The film is filled with teen angst and I can see where it would have a tween girl appeal, but as they enter adulthood they will see it is as nauseating as "Twilight" and just as poorly acted. I had trouble keeping my supper down watching the film, especially when the blond good guy and dark haired bad boy fight over Lucinda. The 12 year old girl might love it while the rest of the family groans.

Yes, he's back and up to his usual tricks, hoodwinking mortals and angels alike.This is 4 1/2 hours that would have been better spent having my back waxed.You can't really point to any one thing where this movie fails,but the sum of its failures is greater than the individual faults. The characters were unbelievable, the special effects were atrocious.I thought the flaming sword thing was the most pitiful aspect of it all.This aired on the "family channel" but has language I would not want any of my kids exposed to. I have noticed that a lot about this channel when they aired the original version of Hairspray and the high school girls are talking about Hair-do girl being a "whore."Really great family entertainment,ABC. Keep up the good work. I just blocked this channel on my youngest daughters satellite receiver. Nuff said.

Depending on how one breaks it down, this movie can be seen as the first two hours of a six-hour miniseries about Nephelim (also spelled Nephilim) who are hunted down and destroyed as abominations (they are half angel, half human) by The Powers, one of The Creator's clans of angels who helped banish Lucifer to Hell and a contingent of his angels (the Fallen) to Earth where they mated with mortals to create the Nephelim.The first two hours were first shown little over a year before the concluding four hours, so that on IMDb, they are broken into this two-hour movie and a four-hour miniseries. {See "Fallen" (2007).} On the plus side, the story moves well enough to sustain interest, and most of the actors turn in satisfactory performances, particularly Tom Skerritt as fallen angel Zeke (who appears only in the first two hours), Rick Worthy as Camael, formerly one of The Powers known as The Punisher, now reformed and out to protect Nephelim Aaron Corbett, a.k.a. The Redeemer, played by series lead Paul Wesley.Nephelim come of age on their eighteenth birthday; and when Aaron, who grew up in a foster home, learns he's a Nephelim, he wants none of this angel stuff, but wants only to live a normal human life. Aaron protests his true nature at every turn, until a fatal showdown with The Powers, and he is forced to decide which path his life will take.On the down side, the aforementioned fatal showdown involves an angelic battle which utilizes special effects intended to create wonder and awe, but which is rendered less exciting by the effects' familiarity from prior works.And Elizabeth Lackey as Verchiel, leader of The Powers, who was so good as the lead character Alexandra DeMonacco in the TV series, "Just Cause", is miscast here -- her emotion is clearly false, and her menace is unconvincing. (Due to reasons which are made clear during this movie, she is replaced by Will Yun Lee in the miniseries. Some fans will remember Lee from the TV series, "Witchblade".) Still, the story holds promise, and I'm hoping it tightens up in the coming four hours.Addendum: Both the miniseries and the story itself pick up one year later. There are a lot of new characters introduced, and it takes a while to figure out who is who, and whose side each new character is on. (There are at least four different factions involved in the action.) Lovely Fernanda Andrade as Vilma Rodriguez, who was introduced in the movie, reappears in the miniseries and asks the questions that are on viewers' minds designed to clear up various plot points. (Sometimes obscurity doesn't generate mystery, but leads only to confusion.)

I liked this movie. Obviously I'm not the only one who thought it seemed more a premiere of TV show. Tina's review of the movie clearly indicates that she thinks this is a new show. It watched like a premiere, it talked like a premiere, it acted like a premiere, and it ended like a premiere. Unfortunately, it's just a book made into a TV movie.With the exception of Tom Skerritt, the acting was excellent. I've always love Tom's work, but his performance was very overdone and contrived in this movie. It did serve to contrast against the great performances by the other actors. Dialog that could have easily turned into groaning, eye-rolling diatribes by an unnecessarily wordy and preachy script was, instead, smart, funny, and well paced.They could have gone crazy with the flaming swords and weapons, but subtle and creative foley artwork kept it from becoming some sort of Holy Light Saber battle. The only really annoying thing to me was the dog's voice! Scale it back a bit! I thought it would've been better if they touched it up a bit to sound as if it were more like he were hearing the dog's words in his head.I hope the networks get enough positive feedback that this does eventually get developed into a regular show.