tadcranky

Wicker Man
Wicker Man is a remake of an apparently awesome movie from 1973 that I have not seen. Which is maybe for the best, as people who have seen the first one are not real big on the remake. This version stars Nicholas Cage, who has aged fast and in an unfortunate manner. His hair looks like it came from a spray can, and he has visible face lift scars on his neck. He has a good dentist, though, so his caps look good.

Poor Nick plays Edward, a California highway policeman who, as the movie opens, witnesses a car crash that is fiery and fatal, despite Edward's best efforts to save a little girl trapped in the back seat. Edward takes some "personal time" after the accident, and soon receives a letter from his ex-fiance, who asks him to come to a remote island (Summersisle) to help her find her daughter. Things get weird from there.

The island is inhabited by secretive women and a few mute men. Edward immediately makes his presence felt, loudly announcing that he's the police and he wants some answers and he intends to find this little girl (Rowan). He does this before he even gets debriefed from his ex, who is named Willow and played by Kate Beahen, a woman who tries to compensate for her lack of acting skills with really poofy lips (it doesn't work). Once Willow and Edward are finally reunited, there still is a long period of time before Edward asks her what happened. Nice police work. Edward goes running and biking through the island trails, all the time never taking off his tie, and never getting straight answers from the islanders. He eventually meets Sister Summerisle, the island's boss; he finds her creepy, and becomes convinced that Rowan is stashed somewhere and the islanders are planning on sacrificing her, which will result in their bees making more honey. Really.

As things reach a fever pitch, Edward gets into a fight with Sister Honey, played by Lele Sobieski, a character that we never really understand but who must have some kind of super powers that would enable her to almost kick the ass of a cop. After Edward finally beats up Sister Honey, he steals a bear suit, and rushes to save Rowan from what he thinks will be her sacrificial death.

This movie has been universally panned. Although there were some silly parts, and I am still not quite sure why they needed the car crash at the beginning, I thought it was entertaining. And it's very funny to see Nicholas Cage running around with bear feet.

I saw this movie with about 20 other people. As with most movies these days, we were told, about five different ways, that we should turn off our cell phones during the movie. Five minutes into the movie, the idiot behind me gets a phone call. And he answers it. As he says "Hello," I turn around and glare at him. He then proceeds to talk until I yelled "Hey" at him. Then his wife, apparently scared by the big bald guy glaring and yelling at them, poked him, and he told the caller that he'd call him back in a couple of hours and hung up. Morons.