Take a real life situation where the participants can’t even explain what happened, then let Hollywood tweak it a little (lot) and what do you get? Well actually you get The Mothman Prophecies starring Richard Gere, but in reality you get nothing. A big fat piece of predictable confusion that is nothing but a waste of time, money and brain cells. Or as I thought of this film, directed by Mark Pellington, nothing but crap. In fact the whole concept of filming in the dark to give it the oh so creepy feel just added to the big pile of crap. Richard Gere, with what he has done lately, can really pick some stinkers and this one requires a gas mask. Gere is John Klein, a Washington Post star reporter. But hey he could have been a dentist for all it mattered. We never did see him do his job, nor did he even stick around DC long enough to make it matter which newspaper he did or didn’t work for. So devoting so much time to his occupation was a complete waste of time and dialogue. He is obviously from DC, but ends up 650 miles away in West Virginia. He never learns how he arrived there, 650 miles in an hour and a half. So we never learn just how he traveled at a speed of 434 miles an hour by car in poor weather, and more than once too. We never really understand what a Mothman is or what’s its purpose is and how it really effects those that see it, speak to it or just know of it. How can this be explained when the writer Richard Hatem is not even sure what direction he wants to go. Now for predictability, unrelated scenes of pointless dialogue is just dropped in. So either Hatem doesn’t know how to arrive at the climax without hitting us over the head with the obvious, or he just thinks the audience is composed of morons. So with this huge zit on his nose just waiting to pop for the final conclusion, we the audience are like “just get this over with,” we already know how you want to end it. Wake up number 37, duh! It is sometimes nice to have clues to the outcome, but squeeze that zit already. All suspense is basically gone. Well now that this is covered, we can look at the plot or what could be considered a plot.

Gere meets his wife Mary Klein (Debra Messing of Will and Grace and not much more) and the realtor at a house they plan on purchasing. Gratuitous sex scenes we don’t see and don’t care about, let us, the dumb audience, know that they are in love. I guess instead of acting out real emotion, this is the only way deep love for his wife can be shown after she goes on to die. The Kleins leave the house all happy and goofy and she then sees something in the road, swerves and crashes the car. The doctor discovers a rare tumor and she dies. An orderly tell Gere she knew because she drew angels. Only these were not angels, they were Mothmen. Cut to the future and Gere is still in mourning for her. He takes a drive and ends up in hickville West Virginia and weird things are happening.

Well the plot sounds sort of interesting, and if you like Gere as eye candy, then this film looked as if it had potential. But match it with not being able to explain anything with figuring out the ending long before it ends, and it gives you about 70 minutes to sleep through your eight bucks. Also appearing in this movie was Laura Linney, Will Patton and Shane Callahan. I’m not even sure a shot of Gere’s ass would have improved this rating (no booty shot) of two couches.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:48:03 AM

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