On the other hand, Edgar Cayce predicted most of California would slide into the Pacific around 1968. Prophecy, as any legitimate psychic will tell you, tends to be accurate in direct proportion to the length of time between prediction and result. It's why most of them avoid giving actual dates.
The Sci-Fi Channel and Regent Entertainment, apparently unaware that Nostradamus is something of a dead issue, have revived the 16th Century prognosticator one more time, stirred him up with a psychic FBI agent with great legs and the requisite cluster of Devil-worshippers determined to speed up Armageddon. The end product, unoriginally titled Notradamus, is predictably (pardon the pun) a year late and a good ten bucks short.
For those not familiar with the name, Nostradamus, born Michel Nostrand in Joan of Arc country in southern France, wrote a book of prophecies that proved to be so accurate (once people figured out what they meant) that they almost got him in trouble with the Inquisition.
The premise of this latest film, written by David Bourla and Brian Irving and directed by Tibor Takacs, is that a modern medieval scholar (accent on the "evil") discovers a secret codex written by Leonardo da Vinci that provides instructions on building a time machine. Zipping back to the 16th Century, Professor Garamond becomes leader of The Sixth Order, a cult dedicated to the Antichrist.
Meanwhile, back in the good old USA, Detective Michael Nostrand (Rob Estes, looking unsure why he's there) has a peculiar murder on his hands. A music teacher has burned to ash sitting in the middle of his living room--an apparent victim of the well-known spontaneous combustion. Then psychic FBI agent Lucy Hudson tells him there have been 26 others, and she's convinced the agent of their demise isn't, well, normal.
She's right. The assassin is a six-foot, five-inch giant with a mane of red hair in serious need of a manicure. This "mabus" has been sent by The Sixth Order to eliminate people who stand between them and Armageddon.
Still awake? Didn't think so.
It's bad enough that director Takacs has resurrected this already-overdone chestnut a year after everyone else had their turn. That his scripters apparently didn't feel they need to bother with doing any research to give the movie at least a modicum of reality is not only appallingly bad writing but an insult to the intelligence of their audience. Police procedure like to get in the way of a good knifing? Ignore it! Need to provide proof your hero has just time-shifted from the Renaissance but can't afford to have him out of commission? Pretend a case of bubonic plague isn't much worse than a a bad cold.
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