Review: Kaena: The Prophecy

Every movement in the film seems to exist solely to show off the filmmakers’ CGI expertise.

Kaena: The Prophecy
Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Chris Delaporte’s Kaena: The Prophecy is a sinister evocation of a gravity-defying planet on the brink of destruction. When a Vecarian ship inexplicably explodes and its remnants land at the base of the wispy-treed planet, two worlds are born: a Selentine city ruled by a really angry alien queen (Angelica Houston) and her chamberlain, Voxem (Keith David), who talks into the breasts of his fellow Selentines; and the rootsy Axis, whose people feed sap to the Selentine monsters at the behest of a leader who trades in Old Testament scare tactics. Banned from Axis because of her curiosity to learn more about the world above (or is it below?) her, Kaena joins forces with the last living Vecarian, Opaz (Richard Harris), and his fey, fashion-designing worm buddies to battle the shrill Selentine queen.

There isn’t an image in the film that doesn’t feel as if it has been swiped from another sci-fi toon or special effects-laden creation from the last 30 years. The offensively big-bosomed Kaena (Kiersten Dunst) suggests a more plastic version of Natalie Portman’s Princess Amidala, while the sky that flanks her city (not to mention the film’s general air of mystery) evokes fonder memories of Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story. Elsewhere, the struggle between Kaena’s people and the Giger-like Selentines recalls the storyline of René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet, though the film’s closer lands as a lame spoof of Ice Age.

However startling Kaena: The Prophecy’s images often are, not only do they lack emotion, but also a theoretical and philosophical foundation. Every movement in the film seems to exist solely to show off the filmmakers’ CGI expertise (or, in the case of the comedy that Opaz’s worms are prone to, their love of The Lion King), and when the plot wheels aren’t turning or a new awe-inspiring corner of the world isn’t being discovered by the perpetually slipping-and-sliding Kaena, our heroine is delivering some we-shall-overcome outburst that’s so corny that it threatens to tear the fabric of time and space. “You don’t need wings to be free,” she tells one of the kids in the multi-culti Axis village. No, just big breasts.

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Score: 
 Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston, Keith David, Michael McShane, Cécile de France, Michael Lonsdale, Victoria Abril, Greg Proops  Director: Chris Delaporte  Screenwriter: Chris Delaporte, Tarik Hamdine  Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films  Running Time: 91 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2003  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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