a5c7b9f00b Pierre Niemans faces the threat of the apocalypse while investigating a series of ritual murders. Chief Niemans is investigating a series of ritual murders: The victims are crucified. He teams up with young officer Reda, who gets embroiled after a man dresseda monk tries to kill a confused guy Reda picked up on the street. Together with a specialist on christian mythology they uncover a mysterious group called &quot;Angels of the Apokalypse&quot;. I rate this a SEVEN because the film is highly entertaining.<br/><br/>The apartment fight scene with Reda is fantastic, and the mood of the film is somber. One feels drawn into the mystery of where it is going.<br/><br/>But the reviewer on the main page has truly nailed the flaws of this film. What is this demonizing of religion all about? The Catholic Church has a far greater role in French society than in the US, and therefore appears more prominently in this film than in say an American flavor of it. In America, the hooded priest hooligans/angels of death would have been laughable. The attention paid to the Jesus-look-alike in the direction of the film is clearly reverential, to add to the legend of the &quot;last days&quot; theme. But this handling truly reveals a deep divide between American and French audiences.<br/><br/>Then appears the sinister German relic in Christopher Lee, survivor of WWII, and even the Maginot line must echo they echo of German/French antipathy. He holds a secret in the mysterious order; so, subliminal message, the Catholic Church is co-opted by Nazis–the Vatican could NOT have been pleased. As the reviewer on the main page notes, the ending is outright theft of concept from Indiana Jones.<br/><br/>The first Crimson Rivers ends in a muddled pool of pre-sentient Christian/Catholic dogma; Empire of the Wolves, while very good, refuses to take on the real Turkish threat, but instead pursues &quot;right wing Turks&quot; who trade in women, drugs, and train terrorists–right and left wing Turks? Hello, Islamists, which are they? The only French Reno film I have seen that is devoid of this French PC/Religious fear/animus is WASABI. Wasabi is a wonderfully funny film, and well worth seeing.<br/><br/>Angels of the Apolcalypse is very entertaining, but comes whimpering to fin. It seems that contemporary filmmakers find it difficult to deal seriously with religion. It&#39;s much easier to latch on to something in the Bible that they don&#39;t quite understand (the Ark, Mary Magdalene, the book of Revelation) and try to create supernatural thrillers under a cloak (in this film&#39;s case, a LITERAL cloak) of religiosity.<br/><br/>This film is never quite sure what genre it wants to belong to. Is it just a bloody horror show, or an apocalyptic thriller, or perhaps even a post-WWII neo-Nazi conspiracy film? You might think any of the above, depending on when you started watching. There is some wonderful scenery from the French/German border area, along with astounding stunt work and adrenaline-rush chase scenes. But the plot never clicks, and the ending, although full of excitement, is empty of meaning and resolution. The underground scenes, drenched in water, almost made me wonder if Jeunet took over the direction at that point.<br/><br/>Jean Reno and Christopher Lee are both thrown away in their generic rolestough cop and dastardly villain. Lee&#39;s final scene is such a blatant ripoff of the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK that I wonder how he did it with a straight face. I saw this on cable with closed captioning. I would have preferred French dialog with subtitles. The English dubbing is lifeless (with all Europeans using bland American accents), and the captioning frequently disagrees with the audio track, occasionally even mistranslating French idioms. Skip this one unless you just want to skim the action sequences!
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