The Prophecy

Christopher Walken is never idle. He's in a film every other week. He currently earns a living playing far-out characters lurking on the fringe of bad movies, popping in every now and then to do something outrageous and, usually, he's the best thing on show. In every film. Imagine a time in the distant past, when this unhinged creature was at the centre of a movie, and all the other actors didn't have a rashers how to react to his free-flowing insanity. King of New York, The Dead Zone, Brainstorm - those were the days.

Here is a movie that gives him free reign. Chris is archangel Gabriel, chief angel of heaven - there's a great big war up there, and only one soul can settle the battle. Like that South Park episode. And several other holy war/fantasy epics. This is a cheap enough, DTDVD affair, but thankfully, it also has a decent story and is very watchable on the few occasions Walken isn't eating up the screen. Heaven war is impressively presented in brief asides, angel battles are short and vicious and a great cast render the whole affair a treat - Virginia Madsen and Elias Koteas are the humans caught up in it all, Eric Stotlz is good angel and Viggo Moretensen is a convincingly wicked Satan. But it's Walken's show from the get-go and he is endlessly amusing, scary, weird and compelling right the way through. Avoid bogey knock-off sequels, which Walken cameos in. He's the best thing in them as usual, but the films are poor imitations of this excellent diversion.