The Celestine Prophecy

The movie was good enough to remind me of the ideas I started to understand about 10 years ago when I read the book. At that time, the book had become a slow underground success, and when it started getting a lot of attention, the literary critics tended to bash it like they are bashing this movie. As a modern-day movie goer, I would like to have seen a more polished and better executed movie to portray these ideas, BUT it still reached me, and I was inspired again, even more than I was by the book because there has been time for these insights to gestate in me. Human evolution. Spiritual evolution. This movie is more about the insights than the story that encases them. So if you are interested in possibilities of the future human journey, you just might get what you are looking for in this film.

I don't know what that other guy was thinking. The fact that this movie was independently made makes it no less terrible. You can be as big a believer as you want... the majority of this film is mindless drivel. I feel i have been insulted by having to watch the first 40 minutes of it. And that alone was no small feat. Not only is the acting terrible, but the plot is never even close to developed. There are countless holes in the story, to the point where you can hardly even call it a story anymore. I've never read the book, so I can't critique on that, but this is the first review that I've written here and it's purpose is solely to save all you viewers out there an hour and a half of your life. I can't remember the last time I couldn't even finish watching a movie. This one really takes the cake.

I've had the pleasure to watch this film four times, and I've enjoyed each viewing more than the last. Having read the book twice - once 11 years ago and once two months ago - I feel that the movie did an admirable job of expressing the essence and heart of the book, while keeping it within 100 minutes and palatable for the average movie viewer.

It is clearly not a polished, big-budget film, and yet it attracted many well-known and respected actors. It addresses issues of power and control in relationships, religion, and politics in a fresh and contemporary way. To me, its greatest accomplishment is bringing a New Spirituality perspective to screen - where humans are not disconnected beings in a random universe, nor sinners subject to the wrath of an angry God, but are one with everything and are co-creators of their experience of life.

I suggest you will get the most from this film by looking at it not as a blockbuster, but as a paradigm-buster.

Happy viewing!

For me, it is a seductive invitation for read the book. because it is too difficult to give the right adaptation for "The Celestine Prophecy". and, if you do not read the book, all is reduced at noble message and gorgeous images. but it is more. this is the lead motif for who I am not convince to compare the book and its adaptation. becaus, director,, actors, cinematography , each, together are parts from an admirable project and it is a big mistake to pretend more. the choice is your - a real usefull book and a beautiful film. as pieces of the same thing. who has many opportunities. to change yourself.

John Woodsen (Matthew Settle) a history teacher finds himself out of a job. He runs into an old friend that intrigues him with a story of a great historical find in Peru. All of a sudden, he gets a pamphlet about Peru and finds a last-minute canceled seat to Peru. Think something is happening here? Yet, it is just the beginning of an adventure.

Seems that no one wants to tell him or us what it is all about until we experience it. What we find is insightful but at the cost of having to listen to boring stilted dialog and people that look like druggies.

The book though interesting is that it does not contain any unique ideas. The writing is nominal but is designed to put you in a different view of reality. The problem came when trying to express this in the visual media. If you had not read the book first the storyline and purpose are hard to follow as they spend more time implying than explaining.

James Redfield was clearly over his head as a screenwriter but at least he was honest. His mistake was recruiting Barnet Bain who botched "What Dreams May Come" (1998) to help botch "The Celestine Prophecy" (2006). Strange but I imagined that John Woodsen would be much older and better-rounded. Maybe there will be a sequel as it has been set up in this film.