The Prophecy II (1998) is the first sequel to The Prophecy.
Gabriel (Christopher Walken) is returned to Earth, after being taken down to Hell by Lucifer in the first film. This time around, he tries to prevent the birth of a Nephilim (the offspring of a human woman and an angel) who is prophesied to finally bring the War in Heaven to an end. The Nephilim in question has just been conceived by the angel Danyael (Russel Wong) and hospital nurse Valerie Rosales (Jennifer Beals). Gabriel enlists the aid of a teenage girl named Izzy (Brittany Murphy), whom he resurrects after she commits suicide. Everything comes to a head in the dilapidated Garden of Eden when Gabriel kills Danyael in battle, only to be defeated by Valerie and turned human by the Archangel Michael (Eric Roberts).
This film provides examples of:
- Animal Motif: As in The Prophecy, the angels perch like birds instead of sitting down like humans, thus evoking the presence of their wings even when they are almost never shown.
- Big Damn Heroes: Danyael crashes into Valerie's bedroom in time to save her from Gabriel.
- Call-Back:
- In The Prophecy, Gabriel asks Lucifer why he didn't stay in the basement. Here, Rafayel asks the same of Gabriel.
- Gabriel states in the previous film that he has killed newborn babies while their mothers watched. That's the plot here.
- Dynamic Entry: Danyael and Rafayel both do the same thing, smelling out other angels who have arrived and leap into battle to fight their enemies.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Gabriel disavows being an Omnicidal Maniac.Rafayel: (after Gabriel has snapped his spine in half) Why couldn't you stay in the basement, Gabriel?Gabriel: This is my war. YOU should have stayed out of it. The friend of my enemy, is my enemy.Rafayel: How many worlds have to burn before you're satisfied?Gabriel: Just one. This one. I'm not greedy.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
- Danyael is impaled onto a bedpost during his fight with Gabriel before breaking off the bedpost and removing it from his body.
- Near the end, Gabriel gets impaled on a metal post in Eden. This allows Michael to render him mortal.
- Humanity Ensues: As punishment by God and the angels for his treachery, Gabriel is turned into a human and left as a beggar by Michael.
- Humans Are Special: Danyael certainly believes this despite mankind's many shortcomings and faults such as the destruction of the Garden of Eden. Gabriel even lampshades and mocks him for this belief by calling him a "monkey wannabe". He even sums up his desire to even be human before his death at the hands of Gabriel.Gabriel: You chose them. I want it back the way it was. You want them?!Danyael: I'd rather be one of them!
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Once Valerie finds out she is pregnant, she ends up being hunted down by Gabriel who wishes to kill her before her Nephilim offspring is born.
- Interspecies Romance: Valerie/Danyael (human/angel). Despite only meeting for less than a day, Danyael manages to seduce Valerie and impregnate her by having sex only once and despite knowing little about Danyael, Valerie still chooses to name her child after him.
- Mordor: What Eden has become. A massive sprawling industrial complex with towering, monolithic smokestacks burning away into the night sky and massive fuel reserves, where Michael and his retinue of angel loyalists dwell.Valerie Rosales: (upon arriving in Eden and catching a mind-blowing vista of Eden) THIS is Eden?Danyael: What Man has made of it.
- Mystical Pregnancy: Due to being impregnated by an angel, Valerie ends up in her second trimester of pregnancy only two days after having sex with Danyael.
- Naked on Revival: This film opens with Gabriel being returned (without clothes) to Earth from the pit of Hell where he was banished at the end of the first film.
- No Escape but Down: This is how Valerie escapes death and defeats Gabriel at the end of the film, with help from literal divine inspiration. Having been chased to the edge of a building by Gabriel, Valerie abruptly starts listening to something she can only hear. She tells Gabriel that God is speaking to her, which intrigues him enough to ask what He's saying. Valerie embraces Gabriel and replies "Jump" then takes them both over the edge, a literal Leap of Faith. Gabriel gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice while Gabriel is almost entirely unharmed.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The Archangel Michael points out to Gabriel that he (Gabriel) and Lucifer have a lot in common. Gabriel despises Lucifer and is convinced that he is very different from Lucifer, so he doesn't care for the comparison.
- Sacrificial Lion: Thomas Daggett, the main protagonist of the previous film, shows up here to be killed by Gabriel to establish Anyone Can Die.
- Sky Face: An ominous one appears at the end of the film to signify that the Second War in Heaven still rages on.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Valerie sees her child as this for her short relationship with Danyael and she decides to keep the baby despite the warnings from the Archangel Michael that she and her child will be hunted for the rest of their lives by angels if decided to keep the child.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Thomas. In the beginning of the film, Gabriel visits him in a monastery to get some answers about a prophecy involving the birth of the Nephilim from a specific human woman and decides to burn Thomas alive after getting no answers.
