Review of The Prophecy II (1998) by Allan C — 04 Jun 2017

For a direct-to-video film, it does boast a better cast of respectable actors and genre regulars than you usually see (Christopher Walken, Russell Wong, Jennifer Beals, Brad Dourif, Brittany Murphy, Eric Roberts, Glenn Danzig, Steve Hytner, Bruce Abbott, Tom Towles, and Steve Hytner) and the film is at times more visually arresting than you typically get in most direct-to-video cash-grab sequels.

However, this sequel to "The Prophecy" forgot to be scary, suspenseful, or exciting, which I'll attribute to the absence of the original film's writer/director Gregory Widen, who only has a token executive producer credit on this film.

Walker returns as the bad seed angel Gabriel, who again wants to destroy the human race, but who's confronted by a good angel, Wong, who wants to stop him. Although there are some interesting sequences here and there, the story pretty quickly devolves into familiar chases and races-against-time.

The original film isn't really that much better in that respect, but it did have a lot more interesting of ideas and characters behind the action, which is the formula you need for a good action or horror film.

"The Prophecy II" was disappointing, but I'm not sure I was really expecting a great film film, despite the cast, so maybe it met my middling expectations.