About the only thing I actually like about this is the last act. This is where all the parts of those "best of The Wicker Man" videos come from. The bear suit, the bees, etc. This is where the film's reputation comes from. Aside from this scene, the movie's boring as Hell.

 

Neil LaBute's direction is bad. Going by this, he has absolutely no talent for directing the actors. The additions to the original script are just bad. In the original, the main conflict was between religion and paganism. In this, it's a tired men v.s. women plot.

 

Going by this and some of LaBute's other films (specifically In The Company Of Men), he has major problems with women. ALL the women in this film are evil, homicidal loonies. A good portion of the men in the movie are lobotomized and only used for breeding purposes. It's the ultimate men's rights nightmare. So Neil LaBute is on par with the guy who writes Dilbert. Ellen Burstyn is just awful. I wacthed The Last Picture Show last night and she was really great in it. Relieving this after watching this is like looking at a picture of a baby from the '50s and then looking at a mugshot of the baby today. Anyone who's heard about or seen this knows what the worst thing is: Nicolas Cage. Half the time he's bland as sh*t. You don't see much of that because all the best of videos focus on him the other half of the time. The other half of his screen time is the scenes of him losing his sh*t. This were we got the following classic lines: "How'd it get burned? How'd it get burned, how'd it get burned?" "Not the bees!" and my personal favorite "Kiliing me won't bring back your goddamn honey!"

 

The main reason I reviewed this was because the student broadcast I work on did a feature on the "Nicolas Cage as Everything" blog a week or two ago. After we shot it we all started quoting this. Grade: F

 

Next-up: Deep Blue Sea