Over the past decade, there has been a steady rise in the number of faith-oriented films. At first, they focused on the debating of ideas or the telling of biblical history and later adapted to telling stories in other genres. Among the genres that these films have extended into is the horror and action genre. An example of such a film is Angels Fallen: Warriors of Peace directed by Ali Zamani. It is a sequel to the film Angels Fallen. Wounded soldier, Gabriel, is ordained for a higher mission of preventing Michael, the archangel, and his horde of demons from decimating earth. He feels the urge to gather his old crew, but confusion dawns as he realizes they cannot go it alone. They soon team up with experienced warriors who have fought the demons before. It will take everyone’s strength and faith to save the world.
Angels Fallen: Warriors of Peace is an action film with a strong sense of faith and is somewhat melodramatic and cheesy: the movie is shot in a campy spirit. It is a mixed bag of good and bad. I appreciated the world building that took place in the plot, the rules that the Warriors of Peace uphold, the existence of the demons and the production design as a whole. All of it was a fun world to experience. Among my favorites was the “Q” scene where our protagonists enter an armory that has an entire stock of demon-fighting weapons which is operated by Deborah, ably performed by Denise Richards. Richards appeared to be in a playful mood as she was able to pour out some demonic blood bodies. Another encounter that interested me was with Balthazar, Cuba Gooding Jr. who took over from Michael Madsen in the last series, I also enjoyed Balthazar, Cuba Gooding Jr. taking over the character played Michael Madsen in the last installment. He gets to flex his muscles a bit in a flashback scene fighting demons on a really cool stone bridge. Action scenes are well-developed and detailed. Both fight scenes in the strip club and the motorcycle chase had some good stunts and nice direction. Even the battle with the CGI demons was not that bad at all.
Then there was the surprise leap of violence and nudity that stirred the film to be a tad edgier than most given the genre.
Despite their overall enjoyment throughout the viewing experience, all these attributes couldn’t hide the film’s weakest aspect – Angels Fallen: Warriors of Peace’s screenplay. A lot more polish would have been great. The dialog was, to put it bluntly, lazy. Most of the characters were archetypes and it was hard to tell the difference between them. As a result, the performances of the cast where in the range of decent to ok. Josh Burdett plays Gabriel with the required weight of the character. His inner battle is palpable, as one can sense his leadership among the squad as well. Michael Teh’s Michael is perhaps the character with the best performance, but it’s possible that he enjoys some of the best lines. Teh plays the heavy with just the right amount of confidence and darkness. The other characters of the cast do quite well considering the amount of time they had on screen, though certainly all of them would have benefitted from better-developed characters and dialogues. The CGI was, in fact, much better than the respectable amounts of CGI present in many indie films with similar budgets, however, when the CGI imaging was bad, it was extremely obvious. The music might also be better, but with smaller budget movies, the score often is the last thing to worry about.
Angels Fallen: Warriors of Peace is among the best films that have a faith based theme in recent years. The mature edge enables adults to understand it better and it never goes overboard with its sentiment. There is some degree of preachiness, however, it is at least honest and candid and not trying to convert the people watching it into its own followers. The production value is above average and it also had somewhat of a Buffy The Vampire Slayer feel to it. All in all, I was much more entertained than I thought I would be. I am of the opinion that those who appreciate this type of movie, would need to get their hands on this one.
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