City of Angels

For many cinephiles, the notion of an Americanized remake of Wim Wenders' haunting film about an angel that aspires to become human, Wings of Desire, is nothing short of blasphemous. Although some may debate whether Wenders' film is indeed great, few would disagree with the assessment that Wings of Desire is a work imbued with a sense of greatness. Its lush black-and-white images of angels watching over us everywhere, consoling a troubled humanity, is indelibly comforting, one of the closest things to poetry ever achieved on film. So, the question is: Is City of Angels a faithful reworking of Wings of Desire, or a misguided bastardization of it? Unfortunately, it's more of the latter. While the storyline is more or less the same -- witnessing the mysteries of the human race, a celestial spirit yearns for mortal experience -- the emphasis in City of Angels is more on simple romance than lofty questions of eternity. Set in Los Angeles rather than Berlin, the film's first half appropriates a few of the visual and aural concepts of Wenders' work, although the sight of angels resting on a freeway exit sign, as opposed to perched atop the Reichstag eagle, is a less arresting one. But eventually, rather than ponder philosophical issues to which there are no easy answers, it takes a familiar story of self-sacrifice and gives it a high-concept spin: Angel gives up his ethereal existence to be with the woman he loves. While you can argue that Wenders' film is too talky and ponderous, there's the sense that City of Angels trivializes its predecessor's themes, particularly in the way that the love story traditionally plays. You know the drill; it's as old as the Greeks: Angel meets girl, angel loses girl, angel gets girl, tragedy ensues. Maybe it's the unshakable memory of his performances in movies such as Moonstruck, Raising Arizona, and Face/Off, but Cage's attempts to register a beatific saintliness here is often spooky. The first physical meeting between Cage's Seth and the object of his desire, the heart surgeon Maggie, occurs in a hospital hallway after visiting hours. Wearing a long black overcoat, speaking in a hoarse whisper of a voice, and making little to no sense in his conversation, this modern-day Gabriel looks and acts more like a deranged stalker than a heavenly being -- how is it that she trusts him, finds herself so mysteriously drawn to him? Any sane person would have called Security immediately. But even if you accept this plot contrivance, the consummation of this union of souls isn't very emotionally involving -- it lacks that transcendence you associate with stories in which love knows no bounds. Watching this film disintegrate into something close to being hackneyed, you ultimately wish that Seth had never chosen to fall to earth to take human form. It's a tumble from which City of Angels never fully recovers.