What’s this all about?
In City of Angels, director Brad Silverling gives us a vision of what the world looks like to a group of angels, who walk through Los Angeles unseen, comforting those in distress, correcting minor wrongs, and escorting the souls of those who have passed on into heaven.
It’s a bleak, curious existence, as the angels have no sense of touch or taste, and can only watch the machinations of human life, while experiencing nothing for themselves. Several scenes present stark visuals of these angels, wearing all black, and congregating in places like the roofs of tall buildings, signs, and the beach, making them feel like an ethereal flock of crows.
Then, a Lifetime movie happens.
The jarring transition from the introspective commentary on the value of emotions and experiences, the nature of man, mortality, and death itself to a scene in which an angel bangs Meg Ryan made me go review the film’s IMDB page.
Had something weird happened in production? Did a different team make the second half of the film? Was the director forced to wrap shooting suddenly, and required to make edits that didn’t fit the tone of the film? How did this go from two angels discussing their observations about human behavior, and trying, with detached indifference, to understand why people do the things that they do, to something more akin to the scene from Starman, in which Jeff Daniels tries to drive a car?
That’s when I saw a writing credit for Wim Wenders, the well-regarded German director. “Why,” I wondered,”would Wim Wenders write a story for an American director best known for the 90’s reboot of Casper, The Friendly Ghost, and episodes of the reboot of Dynasty,the reboot of Charmed, and the reboot of Matlock?”
He didn’t, of course. City of Angels is a remake of Wenders’ film Wings of Desire, an award-winning film from the 1980’s.
Roger Ebert said, “To compare the two films is really beside the point, since “Wings of Desire” exists on its own level as a visionary and original film, and “City of Angels” exists squarely in the pop mainstream.”
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Seth,” an angel who has worked the city of Los Angeles, presumably for thousands, if not millions of years. He “lives” at the public library, listening to the thoughts of readers as his only means of enjoying the works that line the shelves.
When he escorts a human soul to heaven, he asks each human what they liked best about their life experiences, and records the answer in a notebook. It is unclear why an angel would need a notebook, or how he would even get one, as angelic access to physical possessions seems limited to clothing.
Who else is in this one?
Meg Ryan is at peak 90’s levels of Meg Ryan, playing “Dr. Maggie Rice,” a sunny but brooding doctor who cares too much for her patients, but not enough for her boyfriend. She falls in love with Nick because she is unable to stab him with a knife. Also, her bicycle safety practices are abhorrent, even for the 90’s. I wonder why they couldn’t get Tom Hanks for this one. It would have been a better film.
Dennis Franz (Detective Buntz from Hill Street Blues and Detective Sipowicz from NYPD Blue) plays “Messinger,” an angel who decided to “fall” and become human due to his love for a human woman. His life on Earth has been long and fulfilling. He remembers his life as an angel and regrets nothing. Franz absolutely nails this role, delivering far more nuance and emotion than Cage or Ryan.
Andre Baugher (Detective Pembleton from Homicide: Life on the Streets and Captain Raymond Holt, from Brooklyn 99) plays “Cassiel,” Nick’s angel best friend. He’s great. He always is. This is the real tragedy of this film. We could have had a buddy cop picture in which by-the-book, tightly laced Andre Braugher and sloppy loose cannon Dennis Franz fight crime in Los Angeles. Instead, we got “Nick Cage goes to the grocery store.”
Did you see that?
Late in the film, Nick decides to “fall” which involves him jumping off of a skyscraper that’s under construction. He loses consciousness as he falls.
When he awakes, he is laying on the ground at the construction site, with some minor injuries, and surrounded by jeering construction workers. Confused about seeing his own blood for the first time, and being visible to mortals, Nick begins asking the construction workers, “is this blood?”
A nearby smart-ass replies, “Is it red?”
That smart-ass is the one and only Nick Offerman, Parks and Rec’s “Ron Swanson” in his second credited movie role.
In another interesting casting choice, Colm Feore plays Meg Ryan’s surgeon boyfriend; a role so thin that it might as well not be in the movie. You might not immediately recognize Feore, but if you’ve been playing along at home, you’ll know that he was also the surgeon in Face/Off who chopped off and swapped all of the faces.
I like to think he’s the same character in both films, and that Meg Ryan is so self-absorbed that when he is murdered by international terrorists, she fails to notice. -Michael
This is a bit of a cheat, but I’m using the entire movie as one big, did you see that. Simply put, it’s an entire movie with Nick Cage and not once did Nick scream in anger. He is subdued emotionally as an angel and then experiences extreme emotions, and a range of them once becoming human, but no anger. I didn’t think it was possible for Nick not to scream angrily at least once per movie. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
Nick’s acting throughout this film is beyond wooden. A (probably good) argument can be made that this is intentional, given the nature of Nick’s character, but I find it to be quite off-putting making this hard for me. Take, for contrast, Brent Spiner’s work as “Data” from Star Trek: The Next Generation. He plays an emotionless, robotic character in a very stilted manner, but still imparts the character with, well, character.
Anyway, I think Nick’s best scene was very early in the film when he is escorting the soul of a young girl to heaven, and in their conversation, he asks what she liked best. I think he came across as genuinely curious and interested, and the fact that he was talking to a child softened the “gee-golly” nature of a lot of his delivery. -Michael
I hate to do it, but I am a sap for the romantic movies of the 90’s and this was one I very much loved back in the day. The scene where he explains to Andre that one brief moment with Meg Ryan was worth trading an eternity without gets me everytime. Excuse me, I’m getting verklempt just thinking about it. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
The song “That Old Black Magic” makes several appearances throughout the film, playing on background stereos, or in scenes appearing on televisions. It’s a great tune, and an interesting motif.
Once Nick becomes human, he realizes that he can no longer teleport (or whatever angels do to get from place to place) and begins walking to the hospital where Meg Ryan works.
For some reason, on the way, he tunelessly shouts the lyrics to “That Old Black Magic” while gyrating awkwardly as only Nick Cage and Jerry Lewis can. It seems like the scene is meant to convey Nick’s newfound joy at being able to experience the world. Instead, it’s awful and cringey. Almost everything Cage does as a human is awful and cringey.
Maybe if they could have gotten Tom Hanks instead of Cage, he could have brought some of the innocent energy that he displayed in Big, and these scenes would have been funny and endearing. -Michael
I have to agree, the scenes where Nick first wakes up as human are just not done right. It would have been interesting to see what Tom Hanks could have done in the role. We all know how good of a pairing Tom and Meg were. -Sarah
How was the movie?
I found the early scenes setting up the status quo of the angels’ existence to be really interesting. They presented an atypical view of angels as beings who are less than human, and who do God’s bidding without understanding His overall plan. They watch humans, but they don’t understand them. It’s a nice change from the now-standard Highway to Heaven-type angel that we see in so much popular media.
All of this gets cast aside when Nick decides he’s in love after watching Meg Ryan perform a medical procedure which, due to his “vocation,” he has surely seen performed hundreds, if not thousands of times.
This movie thinks that it’s about making sacrifices for love, and whether those sacrifices are worth making. It isn’t. If the gender roles were reversed, Cage’s character would be a classic example of the much maligned “manic pixie dream girl.” Why does Meg Ryan “love” Nick Cage? Primarily it seems to be because he can do magic tricks, and he spends a lot of time telling her how she’s great, and nothing is her fault. For his part, Nick seems to be in love with Meg Ryan because she has blue eyes, and cried in a stairwell, one time. Twilight may be a better love story than this. -Michael
It’s a decent love story. Not the best, but not bad. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
This movie is way too formulaic, for me, and the “twist” ending was super obvious. There was a serious case of “Chekov’s bicycle” going on.
Honestly, a movie in which Dennis Franz’s character debated Andre Braugher’s character about whether it’s better to be an angel or a human would have been amazing. Instead we got Meg Ryan asking “can you feel this” while sitting atop Nick Cage’s presumably angelic penis. -Michael
I loved it. But mostly because it took me back to the 90’s. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
You can rent it on Amazon Prime.
Leave a Reply