The Celestine Prophecy

James Redfield’s best seller hits the big screen with a dull thud. A meatball schoolteacher gets laid off, wonders what’s next for himself and for humanity, and descends upon the Peruvian rainforest in search of ancient-scroll enlightenment. There he divides his time between enlacing auras with similarly questing companions and dodging the oppressive government heavies who would do them all in. Too bad there’s no real conflict to be found here, nor any epiphany. This jungle is densely wooden—thick with brittle, vaguely familiar small-screen talent (yes, that’s the same Jürgen Prochnow who played our governor in the TV movie See Arnold Run) blundering through an impassible script by Redfield, Barnet Bain and Dan Gordon. Armand Mastroianni’s awkwardly reverential direction supplies helicopter shots and soft filters, and composer Nuno Malo loads up every scene with the sort of tuneless, dopey music that’s best reserved for perusing geodes in a New Age store. The only way this movie will change your life is by filching 99 minutes of it.