City of Angels

Year of release : 1998

Run time : 1h54m

Genre : Romance / Fantasy

Cast : Nicolas Cage, Meg Ryan, Colm Feore, Dennis Franz

The movie is a remake of the 1987 German movie translated in English as “Wings of Desire”.

The movie opens with angel Seth, who watches over a little girl with high fever, as her desperate mother doesn’t know what to do with her, and takes her to the hospital. The little girls sees him, which is a sign she’s dying, and she dies at the hospital.

Seth and his angel colleagues watch over people and offer a helping hand when they are in trouble, when they worry, and come to take them when they die. When people die they ask them what did they like most about their life.

One day, Seth meets surgeon Maggie Rice, who fights desperately to save the man he came to take. After the man dies, she can’t get over it, knowing she did everything right, and not knowing how could he have died under the circumstances.

Being able to read her thoughts, he starts to like her, seeing her caring so much for her patients, and starts to follow her around.

He even starts appearing to her, talking to her, and even leaves a book he read and liked in her home.

Maggie had a surgery re-scheduled by her superiors, which is a success. The man who had surgery done, starts talking to Seth although he doesn’t see him.

Seth lets him see him, and talking to him, the man tells him his name is Nathaniel Messinger (all the angels are messengers), and he can feel him although he can’t see him, and knows what he is, because he used to be an angel too. They befriend, and he tells him if he wants to be human all he has to do is fall, because the angels have free will too, just like people.

The movie personally bored me. It wasn’t enough it was long and boring ,feeling it wasn’t going anywhere, and was about nothing, but they had to SPOILER k1ll her towards the end, so it was all for nothing! END OF SPOILER

Maggie has a boyfriend who’s also a surgeon, and she doesn’t seem to care for him.

Seth is curious about what’s like to be a human (I don’t know why would any angel, when they have powers), asking questions about everything the other angels don’t, because they are content with what and who they are.

What I found ridiculous is that Nathaniel just had surgery done, and leaves the hospital in his hospital gown, and eats a lot, and then swims naked in the ocean! Amazing, the stitches from the surgery didn’t open!

The acting was good.

The visual effects were good.

I didn’t like the soundtrack per se, but I did like the artists’ songs chosen for the movie, and the song to which he fell.

The movie grossed 198.7 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 55 million dollars.

Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B. IMDB graded it a 6.7 out of 10.

The movie received a few award nominations including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song, for Alanis Morissette’s “Uninvited”.

Rating : Could have been a contender !