Well, Fallen is stupid enough in grand conception. I'm always irritated at movies in which otherwise normal people agree to accept supernatural explanations for things without so much as a chill running up their spines. But this is a script that asks Hobbes to behave like an utter nitwit even as it expects us to respect him. When a wave of copycat murders breaks out after Reese's execution, and when the killer always calls to threaten Hobbes from the murder site, most men, even most tough cops, would take a few precautions. In contrast, Hobbes walks the streets of New York after midnight without looking over his shoulder. I keep thinking he deserves tormenting.

John Hobbes (Denzel Washington, left, with John Goodman) should use his detective skills to find out just why he took a part in Fallen.

Lots of movies like this require their heroes to behave stupidly, but Fallen finds a variety of ways to irritate. It concocts an almost thoroughly pointless subplot about Hobbes becoming a suspect in the copycat killings. The sole purpose of this is to cast suspicion on Stanton, who's so cold he makes your teeth chatter. But why? It's as if the filmmakers have forgotten that we know who Azazel is and we know he's not Stanton, at least not at the time of the copycat murders.