Hiya everyone!
So early 2012, the world shocked me with the awesome news of a Fallen movie. In 2013 and on to 2014, we received some amazing casting news. I was dead excited for this movie with an overall unknown cast -maybe except for Jeremy Irvine- who (more or less) resembled the characters as they were in my imagination.
It took a while but filming started, everything was okay and every now and then we were blessed with a a few promo images and a very swift clip of Jeremy doing stunts…..
And that was it…… for a very long and extensive period of time.
There was literally nothing. Not a hint of promo, no clips were released…. not a whisper or a trace of the whole movie even existing.
I was seriously starting to doubt the fact that they even made one, at all.
BUT
After waiting 5 whole years (holy shit!) the movie was finally scheduled to release in 2016, and the fandom arose to find themselves a trailer PLUS an international trailer.
I was so happy I thought I was going to die. Fallen was the bookseries that brought me to reading and it’s been one of my top favorites every since I read the books in 2011.
I was on such a high but faceplanted when they announced it would only release in cinemas across Asia and maybe a selective few in the UK. They never even mentioned the US (that’s a first) or Europe, and I was -yet again- struck down by high hopes and excitement over this movie.
But fret not. After it’s release in the UK I made sure I got my hands on this gem and watched it a couple of days ago.
So now for the actual reviewing part of this post, I’ll warn you ahead.
THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ABOUT FALLEN; THE MOVIE. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ANY SPOILERS THEN PLEASE LEAVE-WATCH THE MOVIE-COME BACK
To be honest, I don’t understand all the secrecy. The non-release. Or the selective few that can show the movie. It’s flat-out ridiculous. As a fan waiting for it to come to the public, I was certain something was wrong with it. So much so that I lost all hope to ever get to see it. IT TOOK THEM 5 WHOLE YEARS FROM CASTING TO SCREEN HOLY FFFFFF
And I don’t get why. Why all the trouble???
I have watched it three times since its release in the UK and -although there are some faults with it in my opinion- I like the movie more and more, each time I watch it.
The opening is what immediately drew me in. The setting is perfect. Sword&Cross is an actual church like building that they’ve transformed into a school. There’s an old library with the circling stairs, the stuffy seats and all the things I imagined it to have.
Even the swimming pool was added to the movie.
Seriously! I was so happy!
Then came the characters. Luce is all I could have asked for. She’s quiet, calm. Apart from the long hair they casted her well and the actress couldn’t have done a better job with the script she was given. The same goes for the rest of the cast. Their acting was really good.
There were some glitches every now and then and, of course, some things could have been done better but it surprised me. It’s so sad we, as a fandom, didn’t get to know the cast better in ways of promotion, interviews, tours or whatever. We never got any of the things most fandoms get when there’s a new movie out.
All the while the movie is pretty good….
I have to admit, however, that it isn’t all that it’s suppose to be if you look at the plot. It misses a lot of the huge plotpoints the book has. Which are crucial to the overal storyline; like Daniel’s book and discovering Luce’s past lives or the whole search for Daniel’s family and where he comes from, or why Gabbe is around him so much…. A lot of what makes the romance between Daniel and Luce so layered and interesting is lost in this movie and it becomes a movie about a girl who has lived a thousand lives before, and in all of them she’s loved by a rebellious angel who chose love over heaven.
Which is not the original story… at all.
A lot of book elements are still in the movie but I feel like they left out too much of the bigger ones. Daniel’s character is very flat in the movie, whereas in the books he’s everything but.
I feel like the movie is centered around Luce much more. She does go searching for the reason behind Daniel’s familiarity but never ventures outside those boundaries, and therefore we don’t get to know Cam or Gabbe or Ariane, or even Molly.
And that’s what’s faulty about the movie.
But I can’t dislike or hate it for it.
What I loved best about this movie was the use of setting but also the special effects ❤
Not so much the flying but I’m crazily in love with the wings.
When they first announced it was going to be a movie, I was afraid they might end up using the Disney angel wings; like the clip-ons they use in costumes but slightly better.
Or go with a computer-made version of white-feathery wings that would seem way too fake.
Instead they went ahead and proved me wrong. BIG TIME.
They didn’t even use feathers or white in the effects to create the wings but light in a variety of colors. Light that resembles feathers and wings AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH I COULD CRY.
The clip above is my favorite scene from the movie. It’s after Daniel rescues Luce from the fire in the library and she wants answers from him. To make him tell the truth she jumps off the tower’s edge and that’s when you see the wings for the first time.
Did I mention how much I love the wings.
I love the wings so much ❤ ❤
Man, I wish they hadn’t made such a mess of Fallen; the movie. It deserves so much better.
I really do recommend watching the movie if you’re a fan of the books. If not, go watch it if you’re into angels and a face-full of romance. It’s the perfect movie for that mood.
Hopefully it runs in a cinema nearby you. If it doesn’t, I hope you’re as lucky as me and get to watch the movie via some very hard work and some hard driven bargains.
With love,
Leanne
nevertrustabooknerd.wordpress.com 