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The Celestine Prophecy
Creepy “spiritual” people
2006
Review: March 2, 2007
Director: Armand Mastroianni
Starring: Matthew Settle, Thomas Kretschmann, Sarah Wayne Callies, Annabeth Gish, Hector Elizondo
The only way to get through, but maybe you should just skip the movie altogether.
THE SETUP:
Guy goes on spiritual quest in Peru as portrayed by Florida.
DISCUSSION:
You remember this book, right? It was real big about 10 years ago, when EVERYONE was buying it [I know, I was working in a bookstore at the time], and it spawned several workbooks and guides and spin-offs. It was also a piece of fiction written and published as a true story, and almost everyone believed that it was really true, willfully choosing to ignore the word “fiction” in the back upper right of the book jacket. The whole phenomenon lasted like a year or two and then the whole thing faded away.
Which means that this movie, which arrived a decade late, is fatally irrelevant before it even begins. But the review in the NYTimes said that it was a modern classic in the pantheon of bad movies, so I became interested. Suffice to say they rarely make bad movies like they used to, and I ended up really glad I didn’t bother to see this in the theater.
We begin in 1622 Peru. There’s some religious persecution or whatever, and then we join our bland-as-oatmeal hero John, who is a teacher, in the present day. He is laid off, and as he’s cleaning out his classroom, he looks wonderingly at this long poster representing evolution, with a picture of Manhattan symbolizing mankind’s most advanced state. John writes “What’s next?” on the far end of the poster, and you the viewer fumble to the bathroom to vomit. While you’re up, just grab a bucket or big bowl and place it next to the couch. There’s more to come.
So John meets some dewy babe from his past who tells him that she’s involved in something really exciting, this prophecy that’s being discovered in Peru that says that something will happen that will make everyone feel differently. Hmmm, a little hard to prove, no? I mean, everyone loved Tom Cruise, and then he jumped on Oprah’s couch and yelled at Brooke Shields and now everyone thinks he’s an asshole. Is THAT the cultural shift in attitudes that they’re talking about? Or is it the passing of the Atkin’s craze? Anyway, already there’s talk that it was fate that sent her to him to tell him to go to Peru.
So it would seem that John is able to afford a gorgeous lakeside plot on his teacher’s salary, where he repairs to think and have dreams of the Spanish conquest of Peru, where he sees a number of ancient Peruvians who will prove to have corollaries in the present day. It’s also quite remarkable how these Peruvians look just like suburban Westerners with tans. They also apparently had some mightily powerful hair care product in 1622, further proof of their advanced civilization.
So John decides “What the hell, I’ll go to Peru.” He meets some guy on the plane who is also interested in the prophecy [accident? Or FATE?] who is amazed at “a document this old that speaks of our time,” although we receive no evidence of how it specifically addresses our time [references to Britney?]. John keeps seeing people out of his dreams and having all sorts of uncanny coincidences, further proof that this is all predestined. He comes upon some monk who tells him “I know you’re here to do something important.”
Meanwhile the members of the church [including poor Hector Elizondo as some Cardinal or other] are meeting with his hot Hispanic general because they feel that the prophecy is a threat to the church and state and Internet porn, so they’re planning on stopping our heroes. They are also hell-bent on providing some conflict in a story that would have NONE if they weren’t arbitrarily dumped in there. Also arbitrarily dumped for conflict-provision purposes are these groups of “rebels” who show up and blow things up every now and then—you’d be amazed how many explosions are here, for a film that is basically about a spiritual awakening. Anyway, these characters are introduced just long enough to convey “we’ll be causing conflict later!” and then they vanish for long stretches.
As this happens John meets Thomas Kretschmann, the friendly Nazi from The Pianist, as Wil. I was mourning for the state of the appealing Mr. Kretschmann’s career when I saw that he was also in Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 and The Karate Dog, so there goes my sympathy right there. Wil suggests that John being there was “not an accident” [because there are no accidents] and that he should join Wil on his quest to find the ninth scroll. Let’s pause to consider how it is possible to consider ANY event in life “not an accident.” Because if something happened that had significance, you can always claim it happened for a reason, and if there is no apparent significance, you can always say that its meaning hasn’t been revealed yet. So you see none of this is provable, which is why it always comes back to “you just have to believe.” In this movie, there are a great many things that can’t be described, but “you have to experience them for yourself.” And John in this movie is so wishy-washy he goes along with anything. Anyway, they drive off, down the street that is clearly an upscale Florida street marginally attempting to pass as a village in Peru. As it happens, I have actually been to small villages and larger cities in Peru, and nowhere did I spot an upscale carved wood sign that prominently read: “Bistro.”
SPOILERS, I GUESS > > > So John and Wil arrive at the ranch of the Celestines [not actually called this], having passed the Celestine ruins. There they meet a bunch of placid people all smiling beatifically in the most creepy way imaginable. They’re like evangelical Christians or Jehovah’s Witnesses; you know that anesthetized smile they have that is supposed to suggest joy and inner peace, but actually triggers a quite potent flight response? Got a whole ranch of ‘em. In fact, we actually see people sitting down and giving their energy to the tomatoes. Maybe this strikes some people as beautiful. To me, virtually any of these scenes or characters would be more than at home in the Neil LaBute Wicker Man remake. Anyway, Wil’s girlfriend, the unsettling Julia, takes a walk with him until he sees Marjorie, who he gets an instant spiritual hard-on over. He goes over and talks to her, but she resists him. This is because he was trying to “control” her while also trying to take her energy. We can plainly see this, because their auras are visualized for us. He tries again that evening, and Marjorie is more receptive, but then abruptly turns and bitches him out for trying to control her again and how his “player thing really gets in the way.” And you’re like “Player? So we’re supposed to understand that this guy who is the human embodiment of Cream of Wheat and exudes slightly less sexual energy than a moist towelette is supposed to be a PLAYER?” And yeah, you are. Apparently this was expanded upon and made sense in the book. Then Julia lectures him that “the prophecy says we’ll stop building ourselves up by taking the energy of others. There’s another source. Inside.” Later, John is chastised by Wil as he says “You’re still not open, you know.” That’s what John needs to do: open up. Around this point, the feeling coming across was that this was one of those anti-male things: men aren’t open, they’re controlling, they try to take energy, whereas women are all holistic and at one with nature and not warlike and just love nine-grain bread. It didn’t go very far in this direction, but that is the kind of feeling it leaves one with for a while.
So it’s time for the rebels to attack, which splits up the group and sends John and Marjorie into the woods, until she gets caught and he’s like “Bye!” and runs off toward the world’s fakest-looking distant mountain range, where he stops to have a spiritual revelation, despite the fact that he’s about to be shot and killed. Here we have an Altered States-lite trippy sequence [SO not even worth it] and I guess we are to assume that John has “opened up,” as he can now see auras at will [even those of plants] and is invisible. Yes, being connected can actually render you invisible. Shit, I’d be willing to swallow some of this crap if I could turn invisible. What kind of spiritual Gaia-energy do I need to connect to in order to be able to kill people with my mind?
Tragically Marjorie is not shot at point-blank range and survives to harangue John some more, until she finally breaks down and accepts the tiniest amount of responsibility herself, saying that she has to get over her anger and that “the couple thing is the hardest thing to work out.” Then they both feel happy because they’re experiencing “the couple thing.” Then Wil and the little girl who’s been hanging around share some energy, and we learn that people giving their energy to each other builds them both up. Sharing is caring.
But oh no, the bad guys are going to blow up the ruins and destroy the final insight, so our hero ignites the bombs and KILLS THEM ALL. I guess it’s perfectly in line with spiritual teachings to kill people who would try to stand in the way of man’s understanding. Christians have been doing it for eons! Then all the good folks reach the ninth insight where they basically discover that heaven is a place on Earth. Ooh, heaven is a place on Earth. They turn invisible again [they’re like a spiritual X-Men] and they see all these dead people who have been helping all along. Usually when we get to heaven and see glowy dead people some deceased grandparent or lost pet shows up, but not here. But wait, there’s more bad guys with more bombs and they blow up the ruins! Which is good, because if they didn’t, one would be left thinking “well if all this stuff is laying around in plain sight then how come everyone doesn’t know about it?” Then John goes home, presumably with Marjorie, so they can work on their “couple thing” while experiencing the spiritual life while shopping at Whole Foods and BuyBuyBaby. < < < SPOILERS END
It was horrendous. Barely even amusing. The meager fun it offered was just in seeing how far the reality—all these creepy people—deviates from the tone the movie perceives it has, which is one of spiritual mystery with appealingly compelling characters. The word on the street is that the author of the book, James Redfield, turned down many offers from major studios because he wanted to keep total control, in order to assure that the final product would perfectly express the bland banality of his vision. He succeeded!
Like I said, this was all filmed in Florida and Costa Rica, but from the way everything looks, I’m going to guess that a large portion was in Florida. Only the long shots look like they might have been filmed in Costa Rica, and anyone who has been to Peru or seen a picture of Peru once would know that it certainly isn’t happening there. And then the whole entirely unprovable view of energy and auras and stuff you “just have to experience for yourself,” ugh, it’s all crap, and seems even stranger now removed by 13 years from the reign of the book and its viewpoint.
The disc also contains an amped-up trailer for The Da Vinci Code, as if to say “if you buy into crackpot religious conspiracies….”
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Not really for any reason.
