Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Review #2467: Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Cast: 

Stellan Skarsgård (Father Lankester Merrin), Gabriel Mann (Father Francis), Clara Bellar (Rachel Lesno), Billy Crawford (Cheche), Ralph Brown (Sergeant Major), Israel Aduramo (Jomo), Andrew French (Chuma), Antonie Kamerling (Kessel), Julian Wadham (Major Granville), Eddie Osei (Emekwi), with Rick Warden (Corporal Williams), and Mary Beth Hurt (Pazuzu) Directed by Paul Schrader (#2290 - Cat People [1982])

Review: 

"I’m happy with the film. I realize its limitations. I realize that I made a film with a problematic commercial premise. Now, it may be a quality film, but there was no way this film was gonna go out and break box office records. Not gonna happen. Now the truth is, if they had tarted up my movie, cut it with some gore, done a misleading ad campaign, not shown it to critics, did a huge television [campaign], which is what they did for Renny’s film, they probably could have made somewhere in the same vicinity of money...But, I’m much happier having the film that I made exist in the form that I made it in rather than some tarted-up version I’d have to disown."

Exorcist: The Beginning was such a flop that Paul Schrader actually saw the film on opening weekend with William Peter Blatty and stated, "This is really bad. If it stays this bad, I bet there's a chance I can get mine resurrected." While Warner Bros. planned to give Schrader's film a direct-to-video release, Morgan Creek "generously" let Schrader do a limited theatrical release of his version, specifically a small amount of time and money to refine things (examples include that most of the music is recycled from the Harlin film and a lack of time to do ADR and color timing work). Tim Silano was approached to edit the movie but he insisted that Schrader be around to oversee it. Schrader, in seeing the nature of the Harlin film, went for "a little more leisurely" edit rather than the staccato cut he had done prior (the final movie was 116 minutes, which happened to be two minutes longer than The Beginning). Caleb Carr (who once called Schrader's original cut "one of the most inept, amateur, utterly flat excuses for a film that has ever been concocted") and William Wisher Jr were the only writers given credit for the screenplay. With a limited release in a few theaters (the same weekend as Revenge of the Sith) the movie was at least seen by people the way it should have been: not on the direct-to-video bargain bin; Schrader later called the experience as one he shouldn't have done, complete with saying he "got suckered". The Exorcist was not done being pillaged for new material, as a television series came and went in the 2010s before a new film came out with David Gordon Green's The Exorcist: Believer (2023), a movie that, you guessed it, paled in comparison to the original. 

It may interest you to know that Schrader once called The Exorcist "the greatest metaphor in cinema - God and the Devil in the same room arguing over the body of a little girl." The two Exorcist prequels basically run from the same start and end points with diverging ways to get there: a priest with a crisis of faith (1947/1949) encounters something in the midst of his time in Derati (British Kenya) that challenges who he is before he regains his faith. You could say that Blatty had a point in calling this film a "handsome, classy, elegant piece of work" while also noting that it can only go so far in trying to live up to its namesake. Both movies show Merrin have his faith shaken after being terrorized by a Nazi that has him choose people to die rather than see a whole group get taken out but this one starts with it rather than show it in parts as before. But here he is now an archaeologist that happens to find a buried church in Kenya, complete with having the exorcism target be a youth who goes from crippled to far more walkable by the time the effects (not quite finished, but hey) show up for a movie that at least tried to take evil seriously (before the loin cloth, anyway, that is when I start to chuckle). It is curious to see Skarsgård again hold up an Exorcist movie with the best performance, mainly because there is something to ponder in seeing one try to pick up the pieces of their faith with conviction that does at least make you believe he would be ready for what could happen next in say, The Exorcist. I guess you could say Mann provides the one supporting presence in either of these movies that is worth a glance, even if his role is mostly a whimpering one in the eyes of guilt (both movies end the same way for him anyway).You could say that the depiction of the military intruding upon the natives imitating what Merrin saw in the war is a curious one, but even then, it feels a bit polite when one is talking about evil (Merrin isn't exactly much better, at one point he wants people to work really really hard to dig out that church). I really wanted to like the movie, but there is a hollow feeling I get when watching the movie, it just doesn't feel nearly as tense or as interesting as it wishes to be in "angst". Schrader just seemed more interested in personal angst with Cat People and it also just seemed like a more well-rounded film. As a whole, Dominion holds up better as an overall movie than The Beginning, but neither movie really moves the needle on belonging as an actual prequel to The Exorcist. In their travels from finding faith through an exorcism, Dominion is mild in execution and altogether not as curious as it really feels like it should be, but it at least is entertainment when compared to the slop of Beginning. Pick your poison, I suppose.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Exorcist: The Beginning.

Review #2466: Exorcist: The Beginning.

Cast: 

Stellan Skarsgård (Father Lankester Merrin), Izabella Scorupco (Sarah), James D'Arcy (Father Francis), Remy Sweeney (Joseph), Julian Wadham (Major Granville), Andrew French (Chuma), Ralph Brown (Sergeant Major), Ben Cross (Semelier), David Bradley (Father Gionetti), Alan Ford (Jefferies), Antonie Kamerling (Lieutenant Kessel), with Eddie Osei (Emekwi), and Rupert Degas (Pazuzu) Directed by Renny Harlin (#016 - Die Hard 2, #670 - Cliffhanger, #745 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, #2163 - The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, #2240 - Cutthroat Island)

Review:

"What I tried to do is set up a lot of those unanswered questions that we see in the original. There are a lot of open plotlines that are never explained, so I tried to make it so that if you watch this film and then watch the original 'Exorcist,' the original will seem like the sequel."

Hey, remember when people thought The Exorcist could be a franchise? Morgan Creek Productions, not content with their excessive tinkering of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990), had started plans to make a prequel to, well, The Exorcist (1973) in the late 1990s. William Wisher Jr (co-writer of Terminator 2: Judgement Day) did a first draft, and there were already people hired to try and helm the project by 1999 with Tom McLoughlin, but he left because of issues with the script. Apparently, the 2000 re-release (and subsequent money made from it) of the Exorcist film helped to put The Beginning on the fast track. Caleb Carr (novelist of books such as The Alienist) revised the screenplay and there were plans to have John Frankenheimer direct with Liam Neeson as the star in the summer of 2002...but neither came to pass, as Frankenheimer fell ill; he died in July 2002. Instead, Paul Schrader (director of Cat People (1983) and writer of films such as Taxi Driver) was hired to direct, with "Exorcist: The Beginning" beginning filming in late 2002. Schrader did his rewrite of the script to trim certain things, and the film was first screened to studio executives in May of 2003...and they didn't even bother to give him notes, as he was dumped because they apparently wanted to "re-edit the movie to make it scarier". They tried to re-cut the movie with Schrader involved and then Morgan Creek said to hell with things and instead searched for a new director for the film. They landed on Renny Harlin, who went with re-writes (Skip Woods, Alexi Hawley, and even Harlin himself, although only Hawley was credited), a few new actors (all but Skarsgård, French, Kamerling, and Wadham left) and, well, "action". The new Beginning film was shot in late 2003 but apparently had a hell of a time actually finishing production (Schrader had his film ripped out from under him, Harlin got hit by a car during production and was on crutches). In total, a movie that wa meant to be done for $35 million ballooned to $90 million and wasn't even screened for critics. At least Schrader seemed positive about seeing his version come to the masses, albeit as a "there's a buck to be made" while Blatty (in seeing The Beginning with Schrader in a theater) called The Beginning "surely the most humiliating professional experience of my life, particularly the finale."

It is so funny that Morgan Creek wanted to make a "scarier" film and wasted so much money on a venture that was just going to be skewered no matter what because of the history that comes with trying to play off the "Exorcist" name. III was the only good follow-up, and that was the one where the studio forced an exorcism for the climax. Harlin's movie suffers from just feeling so routine in its execution to the point of exhaustion, mainly because it is a corny experience to actually see play out, at least when you consider buried churches, goofy climaxes with voices, and butterflies. Apparently, Skarsgård (cast as a young version originally played by Max Vox Sydow, who also happened to be from Sweden) had differing approaches for his performance in each movie, once being quoted as saying that he was "much darker" in the Schrader version and even changed his makeup for this version. Undeniably, he does at least manage to be the shining light in either version you watch, mainly because you buy him as Merrin without it seeming like someone just playing dress-up. It at least matters a tiny bit to see his progression beyond just moving away from religion and to step into the shoes that we know, suffice to say. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast does not fare as well, mainly because the movie is so confused about what it really wants to do besides cheap moments (one guy slashing himself, another guy confronting butterflies and shooting himself) that you don't get a feel for any of them. One guy has a bunch of boils on his face and that's about all you can really say as a character. I guess there's one neat line in talking about the spot where Lucifer fell when it comes to the spooky buried church. The movie tries to fake you out in the idea that the focus of the possessed is actually a kid when really it is a woman and honestly, I couldn't help but chuckle because it meant that you at least see a spider-walk from an adult (complete with a demon voice talking about mounting because get it, they did it in the first one) rather than having to see the image of a kid doing it. One doesn't care about the conflict of the people besides Merrin, this could've almost been set anywhere if you think about it, complete with a lack of mystery. In general, the movie is just kind of boring, not really doing anything that makes you think about the first film in a different light while being a general waste of everyone's time. As someone who does give slack on occasion to compromised movies and things*, this was just one of those movies that goes out one ear and through the other. Morgan Creek spent oodles of money but couldn't find anything for audiences to give a damn about, that's probably the scariest thing in the whole movie.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*Exorcist III was probably better with the exorcism in it, change my mind. Or Rise of Skywalker. Or The Stupids. Or any other strange film that I at least have given credit to over the years.

Wayne's World 2.

Review #1608: Wayne's World 2.

Cast: 

Mike Myers (Wayne Campbell), Dana Carvey (Garth Algar), Tia Carrere (Cassandra Wong), Christopher Walken (Robert G. "Bobby" Cahn), Kevin Pollak (Jerry Segel), Ralph Brown (Del Preston), James Hong (Jeff Wong), Kim Basinger (Honey Hornée), Chris Farley (Milton), Michael A. Nickles (Jim Morrison), Larry Sellers (The Weird Naked Indian), with Ed O'Neill (Glen), Gavin Grazer (Scott), and Aerosmith. Directed by Stephen Surjik.

Review: 

It did not take long for folks to realize that Wayne's World was a success. To recap, Wayne's World began twofold: Mike Myers came up with the idea of Wayne that appeared in sketches for Citytv's City Limits and CBC Television's It's Only Rock & Roll in the mid 1980s before Myers joined Saturday Night Live in 1989 and starred in segments for the show with Dana Carvey that were featured from time to time for the next five years. The 1992 film of the same name, doubted by Paramount Pictures to be much of a hit, made nine times its $20 million budget, ranking as the most popular film based on a SNL sketch (which it still holds today). The sequel retains the main duo alongside a selection of cast members from the original alongside a sprinkling of cameo appearances (both musical and not), with Myers writing the film again with Bonnie and Terry Turner. However, the road to making a script for a sequel proved quite tough, in that the original idea by Myers wouldn't end up being used, which involved inspiration taken directly from Passport to Pimlico (1949), where the main duo would end up making their own country. Weeks before production was to start, this inspiration was pointed out by studio executives (who did not have enough time to negotiate the rights to the script and were thus incensed, with one threatening Myers personally) and they made Myers write an entirely new script. Conflicts between Myers and Penelope Spheeris over editing in the first film led to consideration of a new director in Stephen Surjik, who was known for his direction of segments for The Kids in the Hall (1990-1993). 

The film was not quite a hit like the original, but it was a marginal hit with audiences as the last hurrah for these characters. When it comes to comedies, it is a mediocre follow-up that will nevertheless please those who seek another ride of goofy charm with hit-and-miss pace. Those who weren't really fans of the original won't exactly be swayed here, because sometimes it really does feel like a bit of a rehash from before - truly, it is the take-or-leave-it film for the comedy season. Myers and Carvey prove up to the task of creating some amusing moments, whether spent with themselves or playing against others; in the case of Myers, it namely involves a vision of Jim Morrison as some sort of spiritual journey (inspired by Myers and his own journey that he took upon the death of his father) that leads to a few interesting moments to those who don't see the Morrison bits as just a bit. Actually, the "fight" (involving dubbing) between Myers and Hong is kind of funny, too. For Carvey, the moments spent with Basinger playing a femme fatale prove quite involving (along with seeming tacked there to give him something to do besides linger with the look-alike played by Olivia d'Abo). The segment showing Myers and Carvey talk about "The Leprechaun" is a decent highlight to look at for a minute, in the sense that it is probably better done than the actual film made fun of. It is nice to see Carrere, even if her part seems like a re-hash from before (in other words, trying to do music in the face of slimy producers), but the highlight is the re-creation of a particular sequence from The Graduate (1967) near the ending. Walken does well with straight-laced slime that nevertheless can grab a chuckle (or be used for better work involving straight-laced humor). Pollak is used for a bit involving eyes that goes over fine, but it is Brown that takes up the supporting reins in pairing with Myers/Carvey, which he does in a take off the eccentric character he played in Withnail and I (1987). There are various cameo appearances throughout the film, ranging from Rip Taylor to Aerosmith to Charlton Heston, with some proving better than others (Charlton Heston over Jay Leno? Shock, shock, shock. Actually, I take it back, TV sentimental favorite Ed O'Neill's brief moment as the oddball Glen is the better one). In other words, 95 minutes is just enough to handle a few decent moments and a mostly-original run-through for a follow-up film that will fit just fine for what one desires to see in entertainment without being too disappointed. In other words, one can party on just fine with this film without hurling too much back at the screen.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Withnail and I.

Review #956: Withnail and I.

Cast:
Richard E. Grant (Withnail), Paul McGann ("...& I" - Peter Marwood), Richard Griffiths (Uncle Monty), Ralph Brown (Danny), Michael Elphick (Jake), Eddie Tagoe (Presuming Ed), and Daragh O'Malley (Irishman) Directed by Bruce Robinson.

Review:
How can a film feel (and look) so rough and yet manage to be such a gripping dark comedy cult classic? Made in England,  Based on Robinson's life in London during the late 1960s, there is something magnetic about watching Grant and McGann (both in their first film roles) throughout its 107 minute run-time that never ceases to be anything other than darkly amusing. They don't chew the scenery as much drown it with alcohol and manic energy that is amazing to watch play out, with numerous highlights (one of which being them trying to cook a chicken) throughout. It's interesting watch Grant play an eccentric alcoholic, who in real life has a health condition that makes him incapable of processing alcohol properly, and he certainly pulls off a great performance that is endlessly watchable. McGann (who also narrates the film at times) also does a commendable job, conveying the neurotic level-headedness (as one can be when paired with a character like Withnail) that makes him easy to watch. Griffiths does a fine job in being exuberantly larger-than-life, and his last scene with McGann is quite riveting in its exchange. The rest of the cast is also pretty good in their roles as well, contributing to some excellent lines (one particular line involving bald people). The look of the movie is also easy to highlight, in part because of how it achieves a time capsule look (with one quote saying they were "91 days from the end of this decade" near the end of the film), with the scenery also looking quite fitting for the movie. On the whole, this is a roller coaster ride of a movie, with Grant and McGann pulling off great performances in a film that stands out among the countless British films featured throughout Movie Night.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Alien 3.

Review #586: Alien 3.

Cast
Sigourney Weaver (Ellen Ripley), Charles S. Dutton (Dillon), Charles Dance (Jonathan Clemens), Brian Glover (Harold Andrews), Ralph Brown (Aaron), Paul McGann (Golic), Danny Webb (Morse), Lance Henriksen (Bishop II), and Tom Woodruff, Jr. (The Alien) Directed by David Fincher.

Review
"No one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me."
That quote came from the director himself, David Fincher, director of Alien 3, which is probably the unluckiest installment of the franchise. Where did all the trouble begin? Aliens was a massive success, and naturally the studio wanted a sequel, two in fact, but with Hicks the main focus instead of Ripley. The idea then fizzled out as an array of writers tried to deliver a satisfactory (to the studio) script, to the point where after all the scripts were rejected, the producers had to write the screenplay themselves, meshing parts of some of the other writers scripts (most notably the prison planet idea), and having to complete the script while filming started. Also there was interference by studio executives that meddled with the film, which made Fincher angry to the point where he has actually disowned the film.

So yeah, after all that trouble, how is the film itself? It's a sad mess of a movie, that's for sure. The first problem of the movie? How did the egg get onto the escape ship when there was no sign of any aliens on board? It's a plot hole that is quite literally made in the first minutes. Oh, and the characters you cared about in the last film? All dead. Yes, they are shamelessly killed off, without any sense of care, but on the plus side it sets the tone for an extremely depressing movie. The movie tries to set its own tone, trying to be its own. And it just doesn't help the movie much. The big problem is that all of the characters are disposable, Dutton is the only interesting new character, maybe because he lasts the longest, or because Paul McGann (insert your 8th Doctor reference here) isn't in it enough. It's not that we want the characters to die, we're just waiting for them to, which they do. It's not that I don't like the film because it's not like Aliens, I don't like it because it's just a slog of a movie to get through. Now granted it is hard to make a sequel to a franchise that has had two great movies already, but Alien 3 just doesn't cut it. It tries and fails at being something new. The deaths in the movie are not awful, but they certainly are predictable, and the four legged alien looks more silly then threatening, it's the movements that kill it. The shots with the motion camera as the alien chases the crew is ridiculous in its concept, only making you wonder how this franchise fell so far. Weaver isn't bad in this film, but not even she can save this train wreck. The movie at least knows when to end, and boy does it end spectacularly. There is an Assembly Cut for this movie that has more footage, but more doesn't necessarily mean better. Just stick to the first two, and watch this one if you want to be depressed.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.