James Galvin

I have seen some really dumb movies in the past few weeks. First there was a story about a Mexican monk that wanted to be a wrestler. And it was enjoyable. Next up, I went to see the stupidest motherfucking movie of all motherfucking time. I thought it was great. Most recently, an office team-building weekend in Eastern Europe went horribly wrong, resulting in a guy having to stuff part of a leg into a fridge. Even that was entertaining. I’m not difficult to please - and even after these films with ridiculous plots I left the cinema with a smile on my face. So I cannot understand why it is that, with an amazing storyline and such great material to work with, the Wicker Man has failed so miserably.

Before you say it is my own fault for having high expectations, understand that I did not expect this to come within a million miles of the original. I acknowledge that the atmosphere of the 1973 release could never be reproduced, and the presence of Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee could not be equalled. Nonetheless, this is such a great story that even in a severely butchered form I still expected a quality film.

For anyone who doesn’t know, this is a romantic comedy, where Nicholas Cage stars as a policeman who visits an island and dresses up as a bear. A horror story unfolds another level, as a great classic is horribly burnt alive. I tried to forget that the original ever existed, but some lame tributes only served as a reminder that this was trespassing on hallowed ground with a bulldozer. The gripping themes which drove the original were not visited this time around, which meant the film had very little direction except as a disoriented unthriller. It is scripted and acted like a bad video game, and I am glad that I finally have proof of what I wanted to say all along but was never allowed: Nicholas Cage is a one-trick pony who fools people into mistaking his same old thing for good acting. He is suited to some parts, but was so unconvincing in the Wicker Man (spoiler):that when they finally decided to burn him to death I was delighted. The credits roll to the sound of a scream from Nicholas Cage: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHH”. To misquote Meatball: he took the words right out of my mouth.

What were they thinking with those two blind women and their robot talk? What was Mountain Girl doing there? There is not a single good thing about this film, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I nearly walked out after 40 minutes. It wasn’t even “so bad its funny”, it was just bad and boring. Without a doubt, this was the worst remake since Sylvester Stallone starred in Get Carter. 0.5/10.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 at 1:16 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.