Damn the French! For the second time, they created a great action movie until the last 15 minutes when the ending became cheesy, unoriginal and let's face it, stupid. "The Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse" started off as this good vs. evil, God vs. Satan movie and ends with an old Nazi officer trying to find his treasure. "Angels" stars my favorite French (Moroccan actually) actor Jean Reno (Ronin) reprising his role as Commissaire Niemans, from the first movie, in which his is investigating a series of ritualistic murders that portend the Apocalypse.

The story starts off in an old monastery on a cold stormy night when the priests are all sent to their rooms to pray. The new guy( a priest who just joins the monastery) goes into one of the forbidden rooms and nails his crucifix on to the wall and starts to pray. After a few minutes the crucifix starts too bleed. Niemans is called in and his team of high tech cops discovers that there is a body behind the wall, and that the person was entombed in the wall while he was still alive.

Niemans partner Rena, played by Benoit Magimel (nothing but French movies) runs across a man who looks like his has been beaten and also looks like the man himself, Jesus Christ. It turns out that this guy and twelve others formed some kind of religious entity that had all of these guys in a picture in a recreation of the Last Supper. The other twelve men all have the same name as the original 12 apostles from the picture AND had the same occupations. They are also being executed in ritualistic form.

The story continues to build giving the impression that it is going to have a climatic ending with good vs. evil. INSTEAD, we get introduced to this German, who works for the German government, played by Christopher Lee (Star Wars movies.) It turns out that he found a chamber, as a Nazi officer stationed at the Maginot Line (read your History to find out about this,) and in this chamber supposedly is the resting place of a book that was actually written by God, him or herself. It turns out to be a trap and it drowns lots of guys except for the good guys, they get away. Yeah!

This sequel had the same problem as its predecessor in that it started off great but ended stupidly. I am not making light of the pain and horror that the French people went through in World War II because of the Germans. But, can't we find a better villain for the French movies now that it has been 60 years since WWII?

Everything about this movie was enjoyable, and I continue to wish that Reno would start getting American action film roles. America is pretty much devoid of action stars now that Harrison Ford will be 63 this year, and Swarzenegger and Stallone are basically retired. That leaves us with Nicholas Cage and that's about it. I think teaming Reno with Ford or Cage in a movie would be quite entertaining. Please, please, please.

The rest of the movie is not spectacular but not dull either. There is a hottie in this movie, Camille Natta (again all French movies.) The setting is western France which since I love movies shot in Europe, makes me incredibly happy, even if it's France. I can't understand for the life of me why Luc Besson, who has written so many good movies, had chosen this ending for the movie. It could have been SO much better.

Oh well, this movie is still worth renting on DVD if you want to see what amounts to almost a great movie. Jean Reno is still the man in my book and I will continue to watch whatever movie I get to see of his. But this could have been better.

Brian - the Naked Gun