movie 3

The Mothman Prophecies

Okay, I admit, I've seen this before. But it was almost ten years ago and I'm certain I wasn't sober (I was almost never sober back then).  Thus seeing it again was like seeing it for the first time!  I actually read the book back in 2002 or 2003 right before I saw it the first time.  I was into the book, I found the theories about time and parallels fascinating, and of course I wanted to see the movie.  I do remember going to the Blockbuster in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for it, which was not a close walk and sucked.  But seriously I remembered nothing else.  In fact, when it was an option on Crackle, Steve (boyfriend) said "Richard Gere is in that" and I immediately responded "I've seen that, he was not".  Yet he was.  Therefore, although I have seen it before, I contend that it counts toward my 50.

As for the the film... eh.  All I remember about the first time was that I felt like there was NOTHING in common with the book.  I still feel that way.  The movie is creepy without being forthright with it's creepiness - mothman appears for a split second like twice.  The description on Wiki says it's a psychological thriller, which I guess I agree with.  I understand that some of what happened in the movie was true (the bridge) BUT even those were done with liberty - for example, more people than accounted for in the film died in real life, and the cause of failure has been determined..  The story was interesting.  The undeclared romance between Gere and Laura Linney was pretty good.  The former physics prof was really weird, though, and I found his character really, really unbelievable.  I almost wanted him to come out and say he was Indrid Cold.  But alas, no.

Overall I was pleased with my evening spent watching the movie, although at the end I felt a little unsatisfied, like a lot just hadn't been resolved.  Though some stuff WAS resolved and the concepts were interesting (Connie's dream in particular), I felt like there needed to be a little more mothman.  Don't get me wrong, those two little views of the creature weren't bad, just would have liked a little more info maybe, some later sightings info, etc.

Just as an aside, I liked that it was directed by Mark Pellington, who has directed a mountain of music videos, including what was once my favorite: "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam.  I looked up his videography history and it was impressive.  I hadn't even known he directed anything other than videos, but I always remembered seeing his name at the bottom of the "credits" on the "Jeremy" video.

I say a solid three stars for The Mothman Prophecies.