God's Army IV: Die Offenbarung

In Bucharest, the tormented detective Dani Simionescu (Sean Pertwee) is investigating bizarre deaths with the heart removed from the victims. The Interpol agent John Riegert (John Light) is assigned to be his partner in the case. Meanwhile, the clerk of the church Alisson (Kari Wuhrer) finds the local priest dead and a mysterious bible, "The Prophet Lexicon", where the last chapter about the apocalypse, called Revelations, is being somehow written. The voice of an angel, called Simon, advises her that she must protect the bible against a demon called Belial that wants to read this final chapter to have advantages in the war of angels.

"The Prophecy: Uprising" follows the same premises of Christopher Walken's "Prophecy" movies, but it is not a sequel. There are new characters and the story is also good. The locations in Bucharest and the cold and quite dark cinematography contribute with the atmosphere of the film. I liked the performance of the cast, especially John Light with his evil look and Sean Pertwee. I believe that viewers that like movies about fallen angels will also like this good flick. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Profecia: A Guardiã do Destino" ("Prophecy: The Guardian of the Destiny")

Well, without Christopher Walken it makes this film seem more like a spin-off story than in line with the original tale. It's not a great movie but it's alright for a watch if one is really wanting something to do and it's on TV.

4/10.

A series of grisly ritualistic murders transpires in Bucharest, Romania. Gruff cop, Dani Simionescu (Sean Pertwee from "Dog Soldiers" and "Equilibrium" ) teams up with Interpol agent, John Riegert (John Light) to track the killer down. Meanwhile, Allison (new B-movie mainstay, Kari Wuhrer) is a church worker, who, after her priest drops dead, gets to be in possession of an ancient manuscript called the Lexicon, that is still being written by an unseen hand and holds the key to turning the tides in the war against God's army and the army of Satan depending on who gets to it first. Now she is being pursued by both in this movie that has tenuous links to the previous three films at best. Entering this film I was very skeptical about a Prophecy film with no Christopher Walken in sight and to it this film set on the shelf for some time before getting a release and my expectations were low to non-existent. I was surprised then that the film was better than the atrocious part 2. Sean Pertwee in no small part, helped with the enjoyment of the film with his excellent acting, even if the story itself is lacking. The metaphysical pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo does tend to try one's patience before the film is over, and the lack of any real ending still makes this one pretty bad, it's just better than I had expected.

My Grade: D+

Since I have been bingewatching all of the movies in "The Prophecy" franchise, I have come to the fourth movie. This 2005 movie is one that I have never seen before now in 2019. Actually, I hadn't even heard about it before this year.

I found out that Christopher Walken wasn't in this fourth movie, but I still sat down to watch it, as I wanted to watch all the movies. And I must say this, the movie was actually suffering from not having Christopher Walken on the cast list, because he definitely brought a lot of charm and wits to the movie with the Gabriel character.

The storyline in "The Prophecy: Uprising" - the fourth movie in the series - is fairly straightforward and does keep true to the formula of the previous three movies. So there was a good sense of continuity to the franchise with this 2005 movie.

The biggest challenge in the movie, was the characters. I feel that the characters were a bit too simplistic, and not really given proper attention and details. As such, they were lacking personalities and proper meat on their bones, so to speak.

It should be said, however, that they had a good ensemble of casted actors and actresses to perform the roles of the semi-shallow characters, which includes the likes of Sean Pertwee, Kari Wuhrer, Jason London, Kari Wuhrer and the legendary Doug Bradley.

The movie had a significant upgrade in special effects, given the fact that this was made in 2005 and not back in the 1990s.

"The Prophecy: Uprising" is worth watching if you have seen the previous three movies. But as a stand-alone movie, then I wouldn't recommend that you watch this without having seen the previous three movies.

I began to suspect something was up when I found it impossible to obtain a copy of Prophecy Uprising from my local video rental outlet. Initially I chalked it up to the fact that they only had one copy in stock, as opposed to the bazillion copies most releases command. However, upon doing a tour of other outlets in my area I was consistently confronted with the same thing. Each store only carried one or two copies and all were perpetually rented.

Curious, I checked what online reviews I could locate and most uniformly praised the film as a highly entertaining effort.

Finally my luck paid off and I managed to score a rental copy, and based on my viewing I have to say that the reviewers were right. This is one heck of a tight and entertaining film.

In fact, it's arguably the best by far in the entire series of Prophecy films, even though it doesn't feature the great Christopher Walken at all.

I can only surmise that this film didn't get a theatrical release simply because the powers that be at Dimension Films must have concluded that the Prophecy franchise (if such could be said to exist) was on its last legs and had run its course. It would be a shame if true for this movie completely invigorates the concept behind the films, and lays the groundwork for at least one more film, one of which, I'm now of the opinion, could only be done justice if done by the same director (Joel Soisson) and writers as Prophecy Uprising.

Make no mistake about it. This is not some hackneyed special effects blood and guts fright fest. Rather, this is actually a pretty clever and tightly written suspense film done from a detective perspective. The movie relies on viewers to be familiar with the concept behind the original Prophecy movie, but only in terms of the whole war in heaven issue. Beyond that the movie stands on its own and does a pretty clever take on the concept put forth in the original.

Performances are sound all around. The direction, editing, scoring and production values are all top notch. In short, you really can't go wrong with this most fine of direct-to-video gems.

Now I understand why this movie has been hard to obtain. It's good, pure and simple. Check it out and you be the judge.