The Mothman Prophecies | Review

Frustrating spook flick turns into a laughfest.

The Mothman Prophecies is based on a book by John A. Keel and the actual related events that occurred in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the mid- 6o’s but comes across looking like the most unauthentic of a simple Hollywood-ish spin. Caution the film’s claim “based on real events” should be taken lightly as it is a simple pretext for a discourse on what is real and what is unreal. Director Mark Pellington is our professor and in a lucid fashion the viewer is thrown into a tailspin ride of deja vu, twilight zone-esque agitated narrative. Of course, there is a blur of when one should suspend their beliefs in the mothman and my prediction is that the film’s release will coincide with and propagate a few more sightings of…watch out!- the Mothman.

The film starts off in a shot-gun-wedding mode with the beautiful wife (Debra Messing), the beautiful future, the purchase of a home, the fatal and ever so foreseeable car accident and finally death. Then all of a sudden-the plot jumps a couple of years into the future and our protagonist Washington Post reporter John Klein, played by the pound of make-up anti-wrinkled wearing Richard Gere (Dr. T & the Women) who runs off on a trail of excellent Crayola-crayon drawings left by his cancer bed-ridden wife. He is transported within the beat of an eyelash to the freak town of Pleasant Point, where residents are used to strange sounds, strange voices and kids with blood-shot eyes- agent Mulder and Scully were unavailable for the case. Instead of putting a bullet into his head, he will use his inquisitive journalistic skills to figure out the five W’s of his current life dilemma. Joined by the hip with a local police officer with way too much time on her hands (played by Laura Linney, whom I absolutely adored in You Can Count on Me), they unravel more bizarre phone calls, more colorful fantastic drawings from town folk and stories from gun-toting town residents. The pattern is set, the tension ensues and the film’s big finale is exciting for about…2 seconds.

Brain teasing and somewhat eerie at first, the film aspires to be this Sixth Sense-ish type of film with character motivations and actions as the focal point of creating a level of spookiness and relying on a some-would-say, “creative filmmaking”. Cinematographer Fred Murphy has fun playing around with the camera, but such non-edgy devices and purposely-unlit motel rooms don’t equal anything out of the nightmarish world in which the protagonist pretends to live in. The film’s minor plot twists did very little to open my doors of interest, and I became bemused by what Pellington was trying to accomplish with this film and my only moments of pleasure came from the rather farcical moments of the film, in which I’m certain- had to intention of garnering that kind of reaction from the audience. This film will wet the appetite of those whom love the X-Files and are willing to settle for dreadful character dialogue, whimsical character motivations. I simply could not sink myself deep enough in the bliss of constant telephone rings, Richard Gere’s confused looks and a cast of characters that simply fill in voids-see the author who doesn’t want to help, but helps out anyway and then decides that he doesn’t want to answer one last question?! Call it a lack of suspense, call it a lack of interest or more my own problems with film narratives which easily discard events and get too anxious of moving the plot from point A to point Z. In short, The Mothman Prophecies was a turn off for me, but at least it has a nice movie poster.

Rating 1 stars