The Wicker Man (2006) Review

Time: 102 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Nicolas Cage as Edward Malus
Ellen Burstyn as Sister Summersisle
Kate Beahan as Sister Willow Woodward
Leelee Sobieski as Sister Honey
Frances Conroy as Dr. T.H. Moss
Molly Parker as Sister Rose/Sister Thorn
Diane Delano as Sister Beech
Director: Neil LaBute

Police officer Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) reaches a private island to help his ex-fiancee (Kate Beahan) find her missing girl. The community she lives in follows an odd cult and he must locate the girl before she is killed in the name of sacrifice.

I’ve been meaning to watch The Wicker Man remake for some time. The original starring Christopher Lee was actually quite good, and worth watching for those who like horror movies. The remake however is generally regarded as hilariously bad, even by horror remake standards, and is particularly known for Nicolas Cage going crazy (and that’s saying a lot). For the record I went in expecting the worst, and the remake certainly lived up to all the talk. It is astoundingly bad, yet as that made for an entertaining movie to watch, at least for me.

From the very beginning you can tell that something is off about this movie. It starts with a brief scene with Nicolas Cage as a cop seeing a truck crash into a car and failing to get the people inside out before it explodes. That opening moment of the truck crash is referenced quite a bit however in both dreams and even random jumpscares. I get that Cage’s character is supposed to be haunted by that moment but there is no resolution for it, and doesn’t connect to the main story in any way outside of both that and his current investigation somewhat involving fire. There is no reason for it to be here. It doesn’t get any better from there. The writing is quite bad. The most significant change over the original is that instead of it being about Paganism vs Catholicism, it’s men vs women here, which isn’t particularly scary or disturbing. If director Neil LaBute really wanted to stick with this concept, then it would have to be a satire or actually say something about gender politics (mishandled or not). However nothing is really said, it’s just an island of all women who perform rituals, men only exist on the island as workers and are used for reproduction, and that’s the extent of it all. I have no idea what Neil LaBute was trying to do with this, because once again this concept isn’t scary in the slightest. It becomes more funny more than anything, which would be fine if it was intentional. Speaking of horror, the attempts at being scary are laughable. Scare scenes aside, it fails to build a creepy or tense atmosphere. The dialogue is quite unnatural, and none of the characters feel normal or real here, and this is even before we get onto the island of the pagan people.

There are plenty of inconsistencies in the plot that you can pick at endlessly. For one, this movie primarily takes place on a secluded island with no technology or phone reception whatsoever, yet somehow they have a website that Cage looks up early on, that’s just one thing that’s out of place. However most important of all, once you know what’s going on and everything is revealed, it’s just doesn’t make sense. Without spoiling anything, if certain characters were smart enough, this plot would’ve been only 30 minutes long. There’s an endless amount of funny moments throughout the movie, all involving Nicolas Cage. Cage forcing someone off a bike at gunpoint, he dresses up as a bear and punching someone in the face, him screaming wanting to know how a doll got burnt, Cage getting angry in general, the list goes on. Then of course comes a certain infamous moment involving Cage and bees towards the end of the movie, which is actually a deleted scene only seen on the special edition. While I expected those moments, I was also entertained by how weird and questionable many of the writing and directing choices were.

Nicolas Cage really is the star of the show, and as weird as much of the movie is, it wouldn’t have been even nearly as entertaining without him. His character isn’t really strange or crazy, it’s a rather typical and generic horror movie protagonist if anything, but the writing and dialogue mixed with Cage’s acting style just made it come across as bizarrely hilarious to watch. His highlight moments is when his character is just frustrated in the third act of the movie, he goes absolutely nuts and it is absolutely glorious. The rest of the cast are there but aren’t all that good. Somehow they managed to get Ellen Burstyn to play the pagan leader, and really they could’ve cast anyone in that role.

Neil LaBute is the director of this movie, and his work in this movie isn’t that good. Apparently LaBute has made some decent movies, but you wouldn’t know this from watching his take on the Wicker Man. It’s not scary in the slightest, from the attempts at being unsettling, to the jumpscares. There are three jumpscares through the use of trucks alone. I know that bees are meant to be like a big thing for this island of cultists and is meant to be creepy, but it’s not scary in the slightest. In terms of positive things, I guess the production design is alright.

2006’s The Wicker Man is really bad on pretty much all fronts, although if you’ve even heard of this movie you already know that from its reputation alone. If you are looking for a legitimately good horror movie about a cult and was hoping for that in this movie, skip it and go with the 70s original. If you like so-bad-it’s-good movies and/or you like seeing Nicolas Cage act over the top, this is definitely for you and you should definitely check it out.

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In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Tale (2007) Review

Time: 127 Minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Jason Statham as Farmer
Leelee Sobieski as Muriella
John Rhys-Davies as Merick
Ron Perlman as Norick
Claire Forlani as Solana
Kristanna Loken as Elora
Matthew Lillard as Duke Fallow
Ray Liotta as Gallian
Burt Reynolds as King Konreid
Brian White as Commander Tarish
Mike Dopud as General Backler
Will Sanderson as Basstian
Tania Saulnier as Talwyn
Gabrielle Rose as Delinda
Terence Kelly as Trumaine
Colin Ford as Zeph
Director: Uwe Boll

A farmer (Jason Statham) sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife (Claire Forlani) and avenge the death of his son — two acts committed by the Krugs, a race of animal-warriors who are controlled by the evil Gallian (Ray Liotta).

I wasn’t expecting anything when I was going into this movie, Uwe Boll’s first two Bloodrayne movies caused me to have this feeling. For an Uwe Boll movie though, it isn’t as bad as Bloodrayne 2; the movie does have at times decent action scenes. However this movie still wasn’t good on its own, it still has a bad story, average to terrible acting along with having a lot of things from Lord of the Rings which did bother me from time to time.

The story doesn’t have anything interesting to offer, made worse with the movie being 2 hours long, it should’ve been shorter. The first act was set up poorly with characters that I didn’t feel attached to, not helping this is the dialogue which is poorly written, uninteresting and doesn’t further develop the characters. This may be an aside but Statham’s character is literally called Farmer. The most boring part of the movie was the second act, there wasn’t much going on. The third act was the most entertaining and had a whole lot of action scenes which were done okay but they didn’t have much story to link them together to make them interesting. The film has many plot holes, like in one of the final fights with Jason Statham and Ray Liotta, Liotta doesn’t use his magic at the beginning, despite being able to get rid of him in an instant. This movie also took a lot of things from Lord of the Rings, for example the last big battle scene was very similar to the Helms Deep scene from The Two Towers. Even the Krugs seemed very much like the Orcs. The writer of this movie actually rewrote 80% of the script because it felt too much like Lord of the Rings, it’s not just me finding it familiar.

This film has a good cast, none of whom brings much to the movie. Jason Statham doesn’t make much of an impression here, he’s much better in other movies but I will say that he does well in the action scenes, as he usually does. Ron Perlman gives the best performance in the movie, he’s one of those actors who can bring anything to a movie but unfortunately his character still wasn’t given any depth or attention. Burt Reynolds is for some reason in this movie but he just didn’t bring anything to the movie; he looks like he doesn’t want to be there and is quite underwhelming and boring. On the complete other end from acting bored is Ray Liotta who plays the villain and is completely over the top. If you’ve seen the two Bloodrayne movies, you know that Uwe Boll doesn’t know how to direct actors in playing villains. A prime example is when Liotta shares a scene with Matthew Lillard, it’s like they are competing in a ‘worst performance’ competition.

The action scenes in the first act of the movie are done poorly, the camera shook and cut often and they aren’t filmed well. Later on the action scenes improved, the camera didn’t cut and it was steady, however they weren’t very interesting or entertaining, they were just okay.

I will say that this movie is better than some of Uwe Boll’s other movies but this is still a bad movie. It has the many things that Uwe Boll movies have, bad acting, poor writing, average cinematography and has many plot holes, on top of feeling too much like Lord of the Rings. In short, the movie is a poor man’s Lord of the Rings, it’s the best way to describe it. I heard that Uwe Boll made a good movie, Rampage, I would really like to see it sometime; I need to take a break from his movies.