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First of all, before even a review, I will say this is the worst movie I have ever, ever seen. It is my civic duty to prevent as many people as possible from wasting their time and money on this heap of crap. It pains me to say this because this is a low budget Australian film which was a pretty risky venture for the makers. I like nothing more than supporting risky, local films. Unfortunately this risk didn't pay off. Basically the premise of the movie is that Arc angels descend to Purgatory to battle the forces of evil and bring light to a dark and horrible place. What sucked me in was an interview with the director where he said nothing about the movie is black and white. The evil do good things and the good do evil things all in pursuit of their own goals. I love a movie that doesn't have cut and dried villains and good-guys. I could tell from the opening frame that this movie was going to suck, and hard. 1. Instead of advancing the story through action it was full of expositional dialogue. The actors spent the majority of the time sitting around explaining the plot and backstory to each other. 2. The female lead/love interest is literally slack-jawed. Seriously her mouth hangs open throughout the entire movie. I couldn't concentrate on a single scene she was in because every time she appeared on screen I just sat there willing her to shut her drat mouth. I don't know why this is either because every picture I've found of Samantha Noble the actress shows her to be a normal mouthed and quite attractive woman. 3. The acting was terrible. So, so terrible. I came home and watched Elizabeth after this movie and I loved how Cate Blanchett could convey with only her eyes, "I have nothing but contempt for you and your head is going to end up on a pike". There was not a single moment of subtlety or nuance in Gabriel. If any of the characters felt something, they were going to tell you about it. For 5 minutes or so. 4. The fight scenes were so choreographed I felt like I was watching ballroom dancing. 5. Spooky contact lenses / = character development. Actually all the costumes were pretty bad. The main villain looked like a reject from a bad 80's hair metal band. Apparently they used the costumer from the Matrix which explains a lot. The movie's only redeeming quality is a moment of unintentional comedy where Gabriel stands in front of the bad guy monologuing about good and evil despite having a 6 foot metal pole sticking out of his chest. . It was so blatantly ridiculous the entire cinema lost it. There were moments where I thought things would pick up. The cinematography was pretty good. There was an interesting blur/distortion filter used on the faces sometimes which made them look like plastic dolls and really increased the sense of Purgatory being an otherworldly place. It could have been an interesting story but it focussed on the good guy has to kill lots of bad guys to get to the top bad-guy for a climactic battle thing instead. It ended up like a crappy rip off of The Crow. Worst movie I've ever seen and I sat through all of White Chicks. IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0857376/ ButchDeadlift fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Nov 19, 2007 |
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Nov 19, 2007 00:36
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I wouldn't say that this was the worst movie I've ever seen, but I agree with all the points raised above. My least favourite thing was the stupid post production filters they put on in some of the scenes. It looks like the characters were all walking magazine covers (airbrushed to almost comic proportions). It was very distracting. The dialoague is stilted, the love interest is a duck face, the protagonist has this really lame and super obviously painted on "tribal" tattoo (that serves no plot or cultural purpose - he's as white as snow), there are way too many coloured contact lenses and the ending is hilariously bad. Rating: 1 star Don't waste your money.
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Dec 6, 2007 08:11
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The story seemed make-it-up-as-you-go, the tattoos all looked stupid, the acting was pretty bad and the villain had a stupid accent. That said, I'm a fan of ghetto sci-fi/fantasy movies and this wasn't too bad, in context of what it was aiming for. The production and effects were far far better than what I was expecting, it was only until I recognised Erica Heynatz that I realised it was an Australian film. I liked the fight scenes, the slow motion one in the warehouse was pretty good. The main bad guys were just interesting enough for you to pay attention to them and enjoy seeing them picked off. A lot of different camera shots and techniques were used that at times made the movie look a bit like a video game but not necessarily in a gimmicky way. Compared to some of the downright offensively bad poo poo Australian cinema has served up in the past this one works for me because it tries to be different. It doesn't mean this is a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but its brainless teenage fun that I'd gladly watch any day of the week over some masturbatory stereotype clad crap that usually gets pumped out by this country. 2.5/5 (rounded up)
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Sep 24, 2008 11:34
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I'm going to buck the trend and say I liked Gabriel for what it was. It was a low budget sci-fi action crapfest, and I have a decided taste for such things if they are done well enough. I felt this was way better than some random Sci-fi original movie or a random Asylum film. I saw this streamed off Netflix, and to be honest I initially thought it was going to be another in a long line of crappy Christian apologetic action films where the heroes eventually prevail once they get off their sorry asses and accept jesus/the skyfather/the holy spirit into their hearts (End of Days, etc). Such films are everywhere, are overdone, trite, and totally boring as its heard to talk about love and forgiveness while keeping an action movie interesting. Alternately I thought it might end up as some kind of DBZ/Highlander powerbattle where angels smack each other for 20 minutes than one dies to advance the plot. I was glad to say my notions about this film were shattered when about 5 minutes in Gabriel walks into a room, picks up a couple of silenced pistols, and proceeds to get in numerous fist and gunfights throughout the remainder of the movie. This barely had any religious sentiment at all, maybe an amusing old testament warrior god aesthetic if anything. Many of the criticisms leveled about the film in this thread are technically accurate. The dialogue is absurd, as are the characters, both in how they act and how they dress. In fact I would go as far as to say that there was not a 5 minute stretch of the film in which something completely absurd did not happen. However, I believe that all good action movies are, at their heart, absurdist comedies and this film had me laughing the whole way through. My only real complaint was the sound editing, there were a few scenes where the voices were tuned down to such a level I couldn't understand the dialogue. If you enjoy cheesy films to watch with your friends while drunk, this one is pretty good. Watch it. 4/5 I took the tattoos to be the remnants of Gabriel's wings in his human form
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Jun 24, 2009 00:15
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