''The Celestine Prophecy'' is a 2006 American film directed by

Armand Mastroianni Armand Mastroianni (born August 1, 1948) is an American film director and producer. Biography Armand Mastroianni's directorial debut was the 1980 horror film ''He Knows You're Alone'' which was also the screen debut of actor Tom Hanks. He has ...

and starring

Matthew Settle Jeffrey Matthew Settle (born September 17, 1969) is an American actor. He is known for playing Captain Ronald Speirs on the HBO miniseries '' Band of Brothers'' and Rufus Humphrey on the CW teen drama series ''Gossip Girl''. Early life Settl ...

Thomas Kretschmann Thomas Kretschmann (; born 8 September 1962) is a German actor who has appeared in many European and American films. His notable roles include Lieutenant Hans von Witzland in '' Stalingrad'' (1993), Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in '' The Pianist'' ( ...

, and

Sarah Wayne Callies Sarah Wayne Callies (born June 1, 1977) is an American actress. She is known for starring as Sara Tancredi in Fox's '' Prison Break'' and as Lori Grimes in AMC's '' The Walking Dead''. She has also starred as Katie Bowman in USA Network's ''Colo ...

. The film is based on

James Redfield James Redfield is an American author, lecturer, screenwriter, and film producer. He is notable for his 1993 novel ''The Celestine Prophecy''. Biography Redfield grew up in a rural area near Birmingham, Alabama. He studied Eastern philosophie ...

's best-selling novel of the same name. Because the book sold over 23 million copies since its publication and has thus become one of the best-selling books of all time, Redfield had expected the film to be a success. However, the film was widely panned by critics and was a

box office failure A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

, with a total worldwide gross of $1.5 million.

Cast

as John *

as Wil *

as Marjorie *

Annabeth Gish Anne Elizabeth "Annabeth" Gish (born March 13, 1971) is an American actress. She has played roles in films ''Shag'', ''Hiding Out'', '' Mystic Pizza'', ''SLC Punk!'', ''The Last Supper'' and ''Double Jeopardy''. On television, she played Special ...

as Julia *

Héctor Elizondo Héctor Elizondo (born December 22, 1936) is an American character actor. He is known for playing Phillip Watters in the television series ''Chicago Hope'' (1994–2000) and Ed Alzate in the television series '' Last Man Standing'' (2011–2021) ...

as Cardinal Sebastian *

Joaquim de Almeida Joaquim António Portugal Baptista de Almeida (born 15 March 1957) is a Portuguese actor. Almeida began his acting career in theatre during the 1980s, he started his film career appearing on the 1982 action film '' The Soldier'', and later ach ...

as Father Sánchez *

Jürgen Prochnow Jürgen Prochnow ( ; born 10 June 1941) is a German-American actor. His international breakthrough was his portrayal of the good-hearted and sympathetic U-boat Captain "Der Alte" ("Old Man") in the 1981 war film ''Das Boot''. He is also known f ...

as Jensen *

John Aylward John Aylward (November 7, 1946 – May 16, 2022) was an American actor. He was best known for playing the former DNC chairman Barry Goodwin on the NBC television series ''The West Wing'' and for playing Dr. Donald Anspaugh on the NBC televisio ...

as Dobson *

Cástulo Guerra Cástulo Guerra (born August 24, 1945) is an Argentine actor who has appeared in several American films and television shows. He has appeared in the films ''The Usual Suspects'' (1995), ''The Mexican'' (2001) and '' The Purge: Anarchy'' (2014). ...

as Father José *

Obba Babatundé Obba Babatundé (born Donald Cohen; December 1, 1951) is an American actor. A native of Queens, New York City, he has appeared in more than seventeen stage productions, thirty theatrical films, sixty made-for-television films, and two prime-time ...

as Miguel *

Tequan Richmond Tequan Richmond (; born October 30, 1992), also known as T-Rich, is an American actor best known for playing Drew Rock on the UPN/The CW, CW sitcom ''Everybody Hates Chris''. Richmond played Ray Charles Jr. (son of singer and musician Ray Charle ...

as Basketball Player * Vinicius Machado as Spanish Conquistador (uncredited)

Plot

Having lost his job as a middle school teacher, John Woodson (Matthew Settle) finds himself at a turning point in his life. He takes a vacation to Peru, where he spends his time exploring and searching for the ninth scroll, lost from a set of eight ancient texts, rumored to reveal the future of humanity.

Reception

Box office

''The Celestine Prophecy'' grossed $1.2 million in North America and $286,444 in other countries for a worldwide total of $1.5 million.

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 4% based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 2.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Adapted from the bestselling self-help tome, ''The Celestine Prophesy'' is indifferently directed and acted, and its plotting is virtually tension-free." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 23 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Film critic

Mick LaSalle Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broaden ...

of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' called the film "clumsy -- not merely unconventional but awkward in its narrative development and dialogue", and added: "characters are sketched in shallow terms". In his top ten list of the worst films of 2006, LaSalle called it a "misbegotten film, an awkward, undramatic effort", and ranked it third on the list. Mark Olsen of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' said "the movie is flatly acted and extremely ill-paced, lacking any sense of urgency, momentum or fun".

Bibliography

* James Redfield, St Leger Joynes et Monty Joynes, ''The Celestine Prophecy: The Making of the Movie'', Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2005 (ISBN 978-1-57174-458-6).

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Celestine Prophecy 2006 films Films about spirituality Films based on American novels Films directed by Armand Mastroianni Metaphysical fiction films 2000s English-language films