The Wicker Man

(2006) **

My last catch-up review, since I don't think I'm going to bother with Spaceballs.

Shortly I'm going to issue a spoiler warning, not because I'm worried I'll ruin this lean, gristly pork chop of a movie, but because I don't want to ruin the original. But I will recommend Summerisle's spoiler-free review, and mention that I've never seen Nicholas Cage mail in a performance like he did here. Also, if you're allergic to bee stings, and you happen to wander onto the edge of a field of beehives, please don't run into the field, waving your arms and knocking over beehives. Okay, to avoid spoilers, don't read the text between the two pictures.



What really galled me about this turkey was that it should have been so obvious to a would-be detective that he was being played. I've seen Scooby Doo mysteries in which the clues were harder to spot, and the one time he really questions Sistah Willow about it, she pouts her lips and looks around with her big dumb eyes and, I swear to God, at one point forgets her lines and falls back on "I'm upset! My daughter's missing!" and he crumbles immediately. And since he's mailing it in, and she comes across as an idiot, there's just no substance to it.

And once you think his character is too dumb to live anyway, it's hard to sympathize with anything he does. Right after the school marm asks "what is man in his purest form?" and the student answers "phallic symbol!" Nick shows up and, you guessed it, acts like a complete dick. Pretty much for the whole movie. He's constantly yelling "police business!" when he's a cop from a city in a different state hundreds of miles away, and comes across a total jackass. Watch him run around in peoples' back yards! See him take the island's only bike from the defenseless school teacher! Let him burn.

The few glints of something good in this movie: the couple of times you see people gathering sticks and wood, for you-know-what, Nick's POV shot from atop the WM watching his cute little daughter light him on fire, Willow looking wistfully at the goings-on, feeling mixed and sad and probably remembering when she lit her own dad on fire. Of course that last one has no real punch because you're so sick of ol' Doe Eyes by then. Just look at her down there. Feh.

Quoting myself from an earlier comment: In the original, the Wicker Man sat high atop a hill overlooking the sea. This one is in some scrubby clearing overlooking nothing. Snore.

Lastly, the story is bracketed by some paltry attempts at mysterious creepiness. After the scene with the mother, daughter and the burning station wagon, the facts that their bodies are never found and the pair are never identified are pointless and potentially confusing details. And that closing scene, hoo boy. So maybe I can handle the idea of the young vixens from this island being routinely tasked with heading out to the real world to get knocked up, only so they can vanish and then lure these men years later in case they need to burn one of them. Okay, not really, but just pretend. Then they add the detail that these bee hoes just target cops? Gaahhhhd!