Enjoyed this horror film that is more in to themes and ideas than violence

Rating: 6/10 (18 February 2005)

I enjoyed this movie. It's a toned down horror movie more akin to Stigmata than Event Horizon. I haven't seen the comic book, so the movie was new and fresh to me. I thought the acting was good. I usually find Keanu Reeves a little stiff in his acting, but here he moved well and brought the right ambiance to his character. Rachel Weisz is wonderful as the police detective who refuses to believe her sister's death was suicide. When we first meet Rackel's character Angela she is confessing to a Catholic priest that she has killed yet another man. She can't understand how she manages to kill so many criminals when most police officers go three years without even drawing their guns. Angela always knows where the criminals are going to be and she always kills them. I was hooked. Tilda Swinton puts a nice twist on the angel Gabriel.
Sets are suitably dark and oppressive (I thought if they'd just added rain it would have looked like Blade Runner). The story is thoughtful within the universe it has defined.