2000 The Prophecy 3: The Ascent

• Directed by Patrick Lussier
• Written by Gregory Widen, Carl V. Dupre, Joel Soisson
• Stars Christopher Walken, Vincent Spano, Davino Buzzotta
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar8UcSfwBLs
  

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This continues on from the second movie, years later, with a couple of the kids grown up and Christopher Walken’s Gabriel a little older. And he’s stuck being a human, which is pretty humorous. It’s worth the watch to see the storyline get wrapped up.

Spoilery Synopsis

Credits roll as someone throws a Molotov cocktail into the house of a woman and her young son.

We cut to long haired Gabriel, looky pretty shabby after being turned human at the end of the previous film. He walks into a sermon being given by a street preacher in an abandoned building. Suddenly, a zealot in the audience shoots the preacher about 60 times. Maggie screams and runs to help the dead young man as Gabriel watches in amusement.

The zealot, who is blind, somehow manages to get away and go home. He hears voices in his apartment, “I did what you told me.” The voice wanted more done to the preacher, but the man got pushed away by the stampeding crowd and couldn’t finish the job. Whoever he’s been talking to reveals himself.

Over at the morgue, coroner Joseph looks at the dead body of the preacher. Meanwhile, another angel walks the streets looking weird and creepy. The corpse is Danyael Rosales, the son of Valerie, and Joseph remembers her.

Gabriel talks to a detective, and they get along really well; Gabriel seems very human now. Maggie is there to identify the body.

The new angel is A.Z. Jones, and he makes the guard see that he has an FBI ID, which he doesn’t really. He goes to the morgue, and they let him right in. He walks right past Gabriel, who is on his way out. “I let myself go,” Gabriel quips to Zophael. Zophael is against “The monkeys,” but Gabriel has changed sides. “I like it here; I even learned to drive.”

Meanwhile, down in the morgue, Danyael wakes up. By the time Zophael gets there, he’s gone. Maggie is very skeptical that someone gets up from the morgue and walks away. Danyael runs into Gabriel in the alley. Coroner Joseph has a research montage as he learns about Nephilim and the second war and Pyriel.

Danyael is having flashbacks to being dead on a pile of corpses. He goes to the apartment of the man who shot him, and the man is dead. Zophael comes in, so Danyael leaves in a hurry.

Zophael catches Danyael, and they fight. Zophael’s about to kill Danyael when Gabriel shows up in a car and smashes the evil angel.

Somehow, Maggie finds Danyael. She spots Zophael and calls 911. Zophael tells Danyael about Pyriel, “The Next God” and then kidnaps Maggie to drive him around town. He explains his side of the story to her.

Gabriel runs into Danyael again, and this time, he explains things. Danyael rides out to the desert and finds Mary, from the first film, who has also grown up.

Zophael chases Danyael, and he injures Maggie to lure Danyael in closer. Danyael finally beats and kills the bad angel. Gabriel gives Danyael one more pep talk before comforting Maggie as she dies.

Danyael finds the skeleton of an angel in the desert, and as he approaches, it reforms itself into Pyriel. Pyriel wants to wipe out all humans and start over. They argue until Pyriel is struck by Holy lightning and Danyael pulls out his heart.

Danyael comes back to Gabriel, who is now an angel once again. He waves his hand and Maggie wakes up.

Brian’s Commentary

The previous film led right into this one, although it takes place several years later, as young Danyael has grown up and Gabriel has aged a bit by this time. Gabriel has “gone native” and is actually on the side of the humans now, which makes him twice as funny.

A lot of screen time is Zophael wandering around with this long hair and longer coat talking cryptically and stomping around like a GQ Terminator. Probably half the movie is devoted to one character chasing another.

Although there were two more films in the series, this is the end of the main storyline. What comes later… are poor imitations.

Kevin’s Commentary

Thank goodness for Christopher Walken who really saves this one. The story continues, and it’s okay, but there’s a lot of filler time with people wandering around and chasing each other. I liked that they had the same baffled coroner dealing with this weirdness through all three. I found it watchable, and it wraps things up. Yet there are two more sequels…