"These people shouldn't be encouraged, they should be punished! Murder has been commited here, and the victim is theatre!"
-Lois Griffin, Family Guy
That was the exact quote running through my head Monday evening after I got out of The Wicker Man with Lindsay and her mom. I couldn't even give a traditional review for this movie it was so bad. The "What Works" list would consist of one thing (maybe) while "What Doesn't Work" would crash my computer. So, having to ditch traditional review methods, we will instead go with a rant.
For those who don't know, The Wicker Man is yet another horror remake, although in this case, I will use the term "horror" loosely, as in a prostitute's vagina loosely. The story revolves around this cop who is summoned to this secluded island that appears to be owned very privately by this very shrewd community who is looking for a missing girl. At every twist and turn the cop sees things that make him scratch his head and say, "What the fuck?" so to speak. It turns out that the community is really a Pagan community, an old religion thought to be abolished years ago. Whenever the Pagans would have a very poor harvest season, they would build a giant monument of a person out of wicker wood, fill it with fruits, livestock and someone pure (or at least worthy) then torch the sucker as a sacrifice in hopes to appease the Gods so that they may be rewarded with a good harvest season. Once the cop finds out that everyone is in on the girl's supposed disappearance, including the girl, he realizes that this was nothing more than a trap set by the community to sacrifice him to the Gods. Guess what? It works! They burn the poor guy to death in the end.
Some remakes follow the original's story very closely with a couple of new things but the new things are few and far between. Naturally, The Wicker Man is no exception. I will tell you the entire movie right here and now.
Nicolas Cage plays a cop who is considering retirement after having a car containing a single mother and her daughter blow up in his face. One day, he gets a letter from his ex-fiance saying that she needs his help finding her lost daughter and he's the only one she trusts. He goes to this island and at every twist and turn, he sees things that make him scratch his head & go, "What the fuck?" so to speak. At one point, he finds out that the missing girl is actually his daughter as well, so this drives him to find her even more. It turns out that the community is a Pagan community, an old religion thought to be abolished years ago where women thrive while males are in the shadows. The cop finds out the hard way that this whole scenario was a trap to sacrifice him to the Gods. They burn the poor guy to death in the end.
Okay, now that you've been educated a bit in the history of The Wicker Man, let me elaborate on why the movie was terrible.
I love Nicolas Cage's work as an actor, most likely Face/Off being his best (in my whole humble opinion, anyway). However, in this movie, his style is just terrible. He's just too good of an actor to be in this shitfest. There were a couple of lines in this movie that were oh so serious, but just had us killing ourselves laughing, the best being "AAAHHHH!!! MY LEGS! MY LEGS!" While the villagers are dogging him, the camera blends to a shot of the villagers marching towards The Wicker Man but the sounds of the fight are still going on. We wouldn't have laughed if they had just shown the villagers breaking his damn legs, but they didn't, so HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That part actually probably could've been saved if he had just screamed instead of screaming "MY LEGS! MY LEGS!" All of the other acting was friggin' terrible. The rest of the people in this movie must've been in rather desperate need of money, but not desperate enough to warrant a good performance.
The fact that in a couple of points in the movie, Nicolas Cage is running around beating up women is just laughable, if not downright awful, although in all fairness, Leelee Sobieski attacked him first in the pub. It was kind of like watching Family Guy when they have the really offensive jokes and you're laughing when you know deep down that you really shouldn't be.
There are these bee-keepers on the island because they sell honey to keep their source of income in tact, but they looked rather ridiculous. At one, Lindsay whisepred in my ear, "They look like Kenny from South Park," to which I replied muffled syllables. Apparently they also double as security guards because at one point, one of them locks Nicolas Cage in a flooded crypt as he's looking for clues. Too bad they couldn't lock the person who wrote this film down there instead and add even more water.
This fucking "movie" wasn't even scary! For a "Horror Remake", it was pretty tame, which is all kinds of suck right there. There were a couple of parts that might make you jump only because they crank up the music on those parts and the orchestra hits a surprised note. Other than that, this movie is "Blah blah blah she's really your daughter blah blah blah WhyisburnedwhyisburnedWHYISITBURNED blah blah blah MY LEGS MY LEGS!"
This movie's length is only one hour and thirty-seven minutes, but even that is too long with the whole "blah blah blah" factor and just when you think it's over, it keeps going for about another five minutes. At this point in the theatre, I felt the urge to repeatedly slam my head into the seat in front of me, regardless of what my girlfriend sitting beside me or the man occupying said headslammer in front of me would've thought.
A person can tell they are passionate about films when they see a film that will have them mentally reciting lines from it for weeks to come. A passionate film-goer knows a piece of shit when they see one, like me, for example, but too bad a passionate film-goer can't know a piece of shit when they see one enough to stand up in the theatre, shout out the ending loud enough for everyone in the theatre to hear him, walk out of the screening and sneak into catching the last bit of Snakes On A Plane. I have never been so tempted to walk out of a theatre in my life and if I had, it would've been the only movie I had ever walked out of.
In closing, let me just say this: The Wicker Man (2006) is nothing more than the result of someone using a spare film reel as toilet paper. If you are considering watching the original, I would only suggest watching it for the far more sexually orientated theme because the story in general is not a good one. As far as I'm concerned, Nicolas Cage has nowhere to go but up from here. After seeing this horrid sorry excuse for a film, I am quite excited for Ghost Rider because maybe we'll see Nicolas Cage in something GOOD! As for The Wicker Man, I think we should put all reels of this film in a Wicker Man of our own and burn it as a sacrifice to the Gods so maybe they'll give us a good movie in return, which after seeing this, would be anything.
If you want to associate yourself with anything good involving The Wicker Man, download the Iron Maiden song of the same name. The song outdoes both movies put together on its worst day. One of the best reviews I read of this movie was, "I would much rather spend the money I spent on this on a ham sandwich. Why, Nicolas Cage, why?" Indeed, Nic Cage, why?
I'm the Dirtball, and that's my input.
So over the course of the five years since I first wrote this review, I don't think all that highly of Nicolas Cage anymore. I mean, he's okay as an actor, but now he's just so over the top that I just can't take him seriously. Not after The Wicker Man. Ghost Rider was the better movie, but that really wasn't too hard to do. So hopefully we'll be getting the internet at our home sometime next month, barring any FURTHER complications that life could throw at us, and then we'll finally get some new shit up on our YouTube channel. See you guys later!
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