The 7 Lamest Pop-Culture Angels Ever
Add Legion — a recent apocalyptic fantasy film starring Paul Bettany — to the long list of movies and TV shows about angels to totally miss the mark.
Indeed, most pop-culture rangels — such as Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life, Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven, John Travolta in Michael, and Christopher Lloyd in Angels in the Outfield — have been as annoying as, well, Hell.
But at least one recent angel has been tolerable — even incredibly compelling. That’s the sarcastic protagonist of Mercury Falls, a hilarious apocalyptic novel that has consistently ranked among the top ten best-sellers in the humor section of Kindle Books on Amazon (and which can be yours for a mere 99 cents!), despite the fact that it’s entirely self-published.
I recently asked the novel’s author, Robert Kroese, a 39-year-old Bay Area computer programmer, to give me his list of the lamest angels of all time. And strangely, he complied. Probably because I went to junior high with him.
And no, one of his choices isn’t Kate Jackson from Charlie’s Angels, pictured above. “She’s freaking adorable,” says Kroese.
Tess (Della Reese) from Touched by an Angel
“If heaven is populated by overweight, mannish angels who dispense homilies that manage to be simultaneously trite and nonsensical (‘You don’t hit bottom … you hit God’), count me out,” says Kroese.
Angel from The X-Men
“What can you say about Warren Worthington III, aka Angel, aka Archangel?” he asks. “First of all, there are his superpowers — er, power. He has just the one: He can fly, which puts him just below Tinkerbell as a formidable superhero.
“Then there’s his origin: As a teenager, he mysteriously developed wings that allow him to fly. Top it all of with a truly imaginative name (seriously, was Stan Lee sick that day?), and you’ve got all the ingredients for a completely forgettable character.”
Roger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) from Angels in the Outfield
“You knew this treacly 1994 Disney tale had to make it onto this list somehow,” says Kroese. “The tough part is picking which character best represents the movie’s uneasy mix of cynical spirituality, juvenile humor and calculated exploitation of personal tragedy. Surely Tony Danza has been beaten up enough, so I’ll just go with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s 11-year-old Roger, the superfan who comes up with that annoying flapping cheer.”
Criss Angel
“There’s a name for people who do magic on TV that can’t be replicated in real life,” says Kroese. “They’re called effects guys.
“If I wanted to see two hours of pointless visual effects broken up by annoying banter and lame attempts at drama, I’d pop The Phantom Menace into the DVD player.”
Nicolas Cage in City of Angels
“Cage plays an angel of death who starts to have second thoughts about his job when he meets cute-as-a-button surgeon Meg Ryan,” says Kroese. “Contemplating giving up his immortality, he gushes, ‘I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it.’ Besides being unforgivably cheesy, the sentence doesn’t even make grammatical sense. Would he settle for two out of three?”
Brooke Hogan
“Brooke ‘Daughter of Hulk’ Hogan earns her a spot on this list with the cover of her second album (yes, she’s had two), featuring an airbrushed picture that seems to have been lifted from the side of a conversion van of a mentally unstable stalker,” jokes Kroese. “Call me crazy, but I prefer chubby Brooke over a cross-eyed, anorexic rendition of Brooke that looks like it was painted by Napoleon Dynamite during his Xanadu phase.”
Precious Moments angels
“If angels do exist,” says Kroese, “let’s pray that they aren’t freakish, giant-headed toddlers with huge, tear-drop-shaped eyes and vestigial, bird-like wings. These cultish figurines are sold as ‘inspirational gifts,’ but it’s unclear what they’re supposed to inspire us to do, other than puke.”
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I’m sure you’ve seen Besson’s Angel A so I won’t mention it. But I think the Prpohecy had it right in terms of the biblical record.
“Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel? “
Great post! The Della Reese comments left me in stitches.
What, no Shelley Hack … or the classic 1985 hooker-makes-good film “Avenging Angel”?
Thanks — Rob Kroese is pretty damn funny.
But yeah, we totally dropped the ball on Hack and “Avenging Angel.” And what about the angel played by Jenna Elfman in “Can’t Hardly Wait”? Terrible.
In response to another comment. See in context »“Touched by an Angel” was great escapist television–”‘Mission: Impossible’ for women,” a female friend called it–and Reese is blessed with a lot of singing and acting ability. She’ll survive her critics.
Re mannish, she’s 5′2″ and was pretty astonishingly hot in her heyday. I’m sure she’s sorry she offended the Uncoolness gods by playing an angel. And eager to atone for going through menopause and gaining weight.
Lamest pop-culture angel? “Angel Heart,” by alleged director Alan Parker and starring alleged actors like Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro. Unfortunately, the film class that forced me to watch it was real, not alleged.
Wow. Easter Sunday this close, and this piece of hipster disdain for an article of pop Christianity–a pure, sheer, utterly unintended coincidence, I am sure! Happy Easter!
Thanks for the comment, and I agree that this might seem like we’re harshing on Della Reese, the actress, when what we only meant to do was slam Tess. Apologies if it came across that way.
Neither me nor Kroese are all that hipster-ish, though (and Kroese is in fact an unabashed Christian). We just happen to have different tastes in TV programs than you do.
On a positive note, I totally agree with you about “Angel Heart.” Man, what a terrible movie.
In response to another comment. See in context »And pretentious, too. The kind of thing “Twilight Zone” and “Thriller” did infinitely better and at 1/100th the budget.
In response to another comment. See in context »