[5]

After the mysterious death of his wife sends him on a hunt for clues, a journalist ends up in a small West Virginia town where a series of strange events and sightings of a shadowy, supernatural character portend an oncoming disaster. Richard Gere and Laura Linney do respectable jobs as the reporter and town sheriff in this somewhat serviceable mystery-thriller, but the script is a little too messy for my taste. After a strong start, the act two rising action is a swirl of contradictory, unrelated, and superfluous notions. Several scenes independently manage to create suspense and creepy atmosphere, but the ladder goes nowhere near explaining who or what the ‘Mothman’ really is. Some people see him with their naked eyes, others hear him on the phone. He makes predictions that come true, but is he trying to help people or threaten them? I don’t mind leaving things mysterious, but The Mothman Prophecies is a mystery that may disappoint those who like to try putting two and two together. What’s more, the movie completely loses momentum and any sense of urgency before its act three climax, which for all the build-up, feels surprisingly tacked on. Gere and Linney’s characters make a bizarre jump to romantic entanglement near the end that doesn’t jibe, and the revealed meaning behind a few certain clues is laughably belabored. The continual use of moth-like shape in scene transitions also wears thin quickly. Despite all my qualms, I can see a decent movie somewhere in there, if it were just a little more streamlined and subtle. With Debra Messing (Will & Grace).