Fallen
This is an archived review of a discontinued product.
I am a relative porn newbie, I admit it. Most of my porn watching has been done with short clips found for free online and, usually, that covers my needs. I thought I’d get to know porn a bit more with Fallen because the cover really intrigued me. It was well done, and this award-nominated porn flick has been praised for its unique and expensive approach to pornography. Maybe it’s just my lack of expertise or my particular tastes, but I have no idea what these people are praising and celebrating.
Granted, Fallen is presented grandly. It comes in a larger-than-average case that is only slightly smaller than your average sheet of printer paper. The inside flaps give some insight into the bonus discs (there are 4 discs, including the feature title), and a regular DVD case holding these discs sits inside. Both cases feature an image of Jessica Drake – the lead actress – with wings and arms spread in a scant white dress. It’s not exactly family-friendly, but it’s on par with some movie covers, and you could potentially get away with it sitting with the rest of your movie collection – as long as you toss the larger, which is pretty ostentatious.
Fallen is a Wicked Productions film that revolves around the plot of Angel, an angel banished to Earth after her charge met an untimely death. Angel thus loses herself in sex and, in the end, tries to redeem herself. And it works, sort of. I know many appreciate the acting in this film, and there are a lot of non-sex scenes, which makes it seem like they’re aiming for the couple’s and women’s porn market, but the acting is really not all that great. Maybe it’s good when you consider it’s a porn star, and Brad Armstrong does manage to play a generally likable guy in the second half of the movie, but Jessica Drake falls flat and talks with a strangely breathless monotonous voice as she narrates the movie.
And that would be okay if all the sex scenes themselves were not so incredibly uninspired. Most of the scenes involve PIV sex with anus fingering. That seems to be the running theme. Sure, there are position swaps, some lesbian sex, and an MFM trio, but they all seem hash ups of what we’ve seen before. There were only two scenes that really caught my eye – the first scene between Jessica Drake and Brad Armstrong where he puts a little more thought into performing oral on her to a wonderful jazzy background and a scene where Angel is watching another woman in a sex booth (which either turns to sex between the two or perhaps Angel just imagines it). But the novelty soon faded after more than a few minutes of the same thing happening in each scene. Maybe I have a short attention span but they seemed to drone on forever.
As did the entire movie which runs almost 3 hours. I really wanted to watch it in one sitting and I know a lot of people don’t do that. I just couldn’t. It took 3 or so sittings and, by the end, I was fast forwarding through it just to see how it ends. The ending actually reminds me a bit of Hancock in theme and revolves completely around the plot, but I quickly grew tired of the plot and poor acting, if you couldn’t already tell.
I am also unsatisfied by the pitiful excuse they call oral sex and manual stimulation on a female. It seemed like it was all just thrown in to look good for the camera but it was always sloppy and short, two things I cannot stand in my own sex life. I found it hard to believe any of the countless stars were having any fun, and the ridiculously fake moans only convinced me more. It’s hard to believe anyone actually enjoyed making this movie. It’s all so contrived. Luckily, there is an option to turn off the moans and only have music play, and I must say, the music is chosen rather well. Still, it’s kind of odd not to hear any moaning.
As long as I’m talking about music, I had quite a difficult time hearing Jessica Drake’s breathy voice over the background music, which is the main reason I lost track of the plot. The sound techs need to do a better job next time.
The box talks about the unique style of Brad Armstrong, who also directed Fallen, and it may be a step above most porn, but it’s also distracting at times. In the scene with Jessica and Brad, which I initially liked, I grew frustrated with all the fading to black, and many scenes are washed out from natural light, which may be on purpose, but I feel that using professional lighting would have really been the better move. On the subject of style, I originally liked Angel’s costume on the cover but soon came to realize that most of her outfits look straight off the Hot Topic website. Uninspired, again.
You won’t find many actresses who stray from the typical blond and big-breasted stereotype, either. Jessica Drake certainly fits it to a T as do most of the countless other porn stars. I don’t know many porn stars from face alone but they all blended together and there were so many actors/actresses simply in for one sex scene that they never struck a chord with me.
I have to say that there is quite a lot of bonus material including a digital copy of the movie, deleted scenes and the ability to choose from multiple endings. You can control Angel’s destiny which I find really cool but I was so wiped from having to watch almost 3 hours of uninspired sex and acting that I honestly could not force myself to watch more. However, if you like Fallen I bet you would enjoy these features immensely.
So, is Fallen really all that and a bag of chips? Maybe if you like your porn typical-but-with-a-bit-of-plot. Maybe if you have a thing for Jessica Drake or Brad Armstrong. Maybe if you want something a little different but still inside the box. Maybe if you like to flip from scene to scene without watching the whole thing. Maybe if you’re not me. Pirates is much more my kind of big-budget porn.
Damn 🙁 The cover has always looked interesting to me as well as the initial description, but now I’m unsure if I’d pay the price to see it. The cover art says you get to pick the ending of “Angel” did you happen to do that?
It looks so….elaborate just for porn. Maybe I’ll have to giggle at it sometime. 🙂
I think that was totally part of the appeal for women and couples (plot-wise) and the packaging DOES make it stand out in a good way. Just not my thing.