The Wicker Man

** out of ****

I went and saw The Wicker Man on Saturday with Andrew and Bob. I didn't really know what it was about, and I couldn't remember the preview, but I thought "hey, Nicholas Cage is in it, it's a horror movie, it can't be that bad. Right? RIGHT??"

No, not right. Very, very wrong in fact.

Nicholas Cage plays a police officer haunted by his failure to save a mother and daughter who are hit by a semi while Cage has them pulled over by the side of the road. Enter former fiance sending a letter pleading for help in finding her missing daughter. Cage goes to creepy isolated island in the pacific northwest and finds himself in a crazy earth worshiping, female dominated commune. >_<

Cage spends most of the movie wandering around the island discovering things, having bad dreams (which seem like they should mean something, but in the end, no, they don't) and trying to get more information out of the ex fiance, who seems perpetually dazed and chronically confused. That's her in the picture. Doesn't she look confused? She looks like that through the whole movie.

The writing is bad, there are plot elements that either go nowhere or I'm just not smart enough to figure out where they wrap up. I'm guessing the former. The acting is all right, and the only thing that saves this movie is Nicholas Cage and a couple of other appealing actresses. Unfortunately, they don't really have much to work with. And of course the biggest thing that drove me crazy were all Nicholas Cage's dreams. They set it up so that it's obviously more than just the dreams of a man haunted by a tragic event. You know, flashbacks at key moments, repeated dreams, etc. But nothing ever comes of it. It doesn't really have any bearing on the main plot. Maybe they were just looking for extra jump scenes, I don't know. But it sucked.

Well, I'm going to save you some valuable time and money. Don't go see this movie. And if you absolutely have to see it, wait until it comes out on view. Trust me, you'll be happy you did.

I mean seriously. Just look at that.