I've watched "Wings of Desire" and "Faraway, so close" two or three times -yes, I LOVE those movies. In my opinion, "City of Angels" is a bad copy of "Wings...", a bad copy between the obvious and the disrespectful.
First, the acting -all you have to do to be an angel is lift your eyebrows (as Nick Cage enjoys doing the whole movie). He wanders through the film looking as if he's about to cry; he's no angel, just a good-looking guy trying to play the innocent-and-loving character. Meg Ryan -well, why bother? She's the standard actress for this kind of romantic journeys -maybe because she always performs the same way.
Then, the photography. No spoiler here: remember when Cage and his angelical companion Cassiel, standing on a skyscraper, mention the beauty of the view -which we are carried to see; and there, all over the screen, stands this awfully big Marlboro ad. Oh, how lovely! Also, those unavoidable pieces of every simplistic romance movie: the "character ponders it over" with its score of incidental music, and the "great slow-mo" moment of ecstasy.
And last, the plot. Plenty of cliches ("love conquers all", "the wages of sin is death", "the materialistic who starts to believe again"...), absolutely predictable, flat characters, clumsy lines. Love is far more complex than this -and so is death.
Looking at this picture I ask: why is it that nobody thinks of re-writing "Romeo and Juliet" or repainting Van Gogh's "The sunflowers", but everybody thinks it right to remake "Psycho" or "Wings of Desire"?
Look for the best-seller: "How to spoil a classic: The Movie!"
First, the acting -all you have to do to be an angel is lift your eyebrows (as Nick Cage enjoys doing the whole movie). He wanders through the film looking as if he's about to cry; he's no angel, just a good-looking guy trying to play the innocent-and-loving character. Meg Ryan -well, why bother? She's the standard actress for this kind of romantic journeys -maybe because she always performs the same way.
Then, the photography. No spoiler here: remember when Cage and his angelical companion Cassiel, standing on a skyscraper, mention the beauty of the view -which we are carried to see; and there, all over the screen, stands this awfully big Marlboro ad. Oh, how lovely! Also, those unavoidable pieces of every simplistic romance movie: the "character ponders it over" with its score of incidental music, and the "great slow-mo" moment of ecstasy.
And last, the plot. Plenty of cliches ("love conquers all", "the wages of sin is death", "the materialistic who starts to believe again"...), absolutely predictable, flat characters, clumsy lines. Love is far more complex than this -and so is death.
Looking at this picture I ask: why is it that nobody thinks of re-writing "Romeo and Juliet" or repainting Van Gogh's "The sunflowers", but everybody thinks it right to remake "Psycho" or "Wings of Desire"?
Look for the best-seller: "How to spoil a classic: The Movie!"