The Pope's Exorcist (2023)

Like everyone, my mood can decide how I respond to a movie. Catch me on a good day and I may be receptive and kind. Catch me on a bad day and the film may have to work a lot harder to get me to warm to it. The Pope’s Exorcist caught me on a very good day. That is the only way I can explain why I enjoyed it so much.

Russell Crowe, going all out with his Italian accent, plays Father Gabriel Amorth, the titular character. He can battle demons whenever the need arises, but he can also spot other problems, and deal with them accordingly. When a family starts to have a serious problem, in the shape of the youngest member being possessed by a demon who demands an encounter with Father Amorth, the stage is set for the kind of epic battle of wills that can only end when souls are completely saved. Or completely damned.

Directed by Julius Avery (who did the excellent Overlord and the not-so-excellent Samaritan), this is everything you think it is going to be, a slick horror movie with dollops of CGI used to show demon activity, a BIG performance from Crowe, and lots of moments that feel highly derivative.

Writers Michael Petroni, Evan Spiliotopolous, and others who helped form the main story, are aware that their central character comes with a whole load of horror movie baggage (it won’t take anyone long to find out why he is such a notable figure in the horror genre), and they don’t shy away from moments that will feel familiar to anyone with a moderate interest in the genre. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the script leans heavily into the familiar, using a lot of standard horror movie moments as a background that highlights the humour and personality of the central character, and that proves to be a surprisingly good approach.

Crowe is a lot of fun here, keeping a twinkle in his eye and a wry grin on his face right up until the second that things get intense and dangerous. He seems to be having a blast, and his amusement and energy are infectious. Alex Essoe, Peter Desouza-Feighoney, and Laurel Marsden are the family members who end up trying to fend off a demonic onslaught, with both Essoe and Marsden doing great work while Desouza-Feighoney seems to have been picked for his suitability with the practical and digital effects. Daniel Zovatto is your typical inexperienced “assistant”, aka the young priest to fight alongside the old priest, and he’s fine, but bonus points go to whoever decided to cast Franco Nero as his Holiness himself, the Pope. He isn’t onscreen often, but he appears just often enough to raise a smile.

I rolled my eyes when The Pope’s Exorcist began, and I rolled my eyes with every new “revelation”. But I was also smiling as I rolled my eyes. And, maybe because I was in a very good mood, I soon realised that I was rolling my eyes a bit less and smiling a bit more, despite the standard CGI tricks and the hugely predictable third act. I enjoyed this. I would watch it again. I would also definitely watch any sequel based around Crowe’s portrayal of this character.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Rite (2011)

You would think that Anthony Hopkins would be well-suited to the role of a priest who can conduct exorcisms in a firm, and seemingly non-traditional, manner. In a way, didn't he already play just that kind of role, and superbly, when he took on the famous character of Van Helsing? So The Rite, a handsomely-mounted horror/drama about a younger priest full of doubt (Michael Kovak, played by Colin O'Donoghue) learning much from a stoic elder (Father Lucas Trevant, played by Hopkins), would seem to be an easy winner. Sadly, that is not the case.

Based on, possibly very loosely, on a book of the same name by Matt Biaglo, this is a "true story" that ticks almost every exorcism movie cliché off the list, and that's always a tricky proposition. Because if you're going to do that, especially if you're pairing up an older priest with a younger priest who is starting to doubt his faith, then you need to be pretty bloody special. Because there's one movie that casts a hell of a long shadow over all of these movies.

All of the characters are sketched out and put in place quickly enough. Michael feels like someone it is easy to root for, and we see plenty of backstory involving his relationship with his father (Rutger Hauer). He is asked to go to Rome to attend a course in exorcism, which will either help him to find his faith once more or convince him that his journey on this particular path is at an end. Father Trevant is a force of nature, and a bit of an expert in exorcisms (of course), and remains convinced that he always does whatever is necessary to save any tortured souls. And Angeline (Alice Braga) is someone else attending the course, which means she can have conversations with Michael as he continues to feel doubt over any other sensation.

It's no surprise to look through the filmography of screenwriter Michael Petroni and see that nothing stands out, with the exception of the wonderful, and disappointingly underseen, The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys. Petroni has, for most of the past two decades, been specialising in writing films seemingly destined to be forgotten. And this is coming from someone who quite liked The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader.

Director Mikael Håfström has a slightly better success rate, especially around this time (1408 was a few years before this and Escape Plan was just after), but this feels like a movie where his hands were tied. It is an exorcism movie for a mainstream audience, meaning the horror element is never really satisfying and it is all far too safe and predictable.

Hopkins is the highlight, and selling the movie on his presence alone is no bad thing. Hauer is also very good in his much smaller role, and it's a shame that he isn't used to much greater effect. Braga, through no fault of her own, feels completely superfluous, an addition for the sake of having a female character who isn't just a possible victim of possession. The weakest cast member is O'Donoghue though, who just doesn't feel very convincing at any point. I wouldn't say he was actually bad, but he certainly feels as if he's been miscast, unable to sell viewers on him being a doubtful priest OR a worthwhile leading man. Ciarán Hinds and Toby Jones have very small roles, but I will mention them as the other main positives in a film in need of all the help it can get.

Easily the worst of the mainstream exorcism/possession movies from the last few decades, this is eminently forgettable and unworthy of your time. In the same way that multiplying two negatives leads to a positive, it turns out that numerous wrongs can add up to a rite. 

3/10

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The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (2010)

I had to look up some figures for the Narnia movies before I began writing this review. According to Box Office Mojo, the first film had a production budget of $180M and made a shade over $745M worldwide. Not bad. The second film had a production budget of $225M and made just under $420M worldwide. And this film had a production budget of $155M, bringing in a worldwide take of just over $415M. How the hell the Prince Caspian movie ended up costing $225M is beyond me, but it seems clear that the series was scuppered at that point. Which is a bit of a shame. Because while The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader ended up making the least at the box office, it's a contender for the best of the three films, taking two main characters and throwing them almost immediately into a wild adventure that involves dark magic, a hunt for special items that can be used to stop an evil force, a dragon, and much more.

Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) are miserable, staying at the home of relatives, including a most horrid cousin, Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter). It doesn't take them long, however, to get back to Narnia, this time through a painting of a sailing ship. And the astonished Eustace ends up there with them, meeting Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) and his crew, and soon seeing sights that convince him he must be hallucinating.

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I liked this film more than the previous two Narnia adventures. There are still some problems. None of these films work as well as they could, but this one comes the closest, and that is despite an adventure that focuses on the two youngest, and previously most annoying, members of the Pevensie family.

Henley and Keynes both do better here than they have done previously, obviously improving slightly with each movie in the series, due to the script helping them out and the fact that they have grown up a bit. Barnes is still absolute fine as the courageous and good-hearted Prince Caspian, and Gary Sweet does pretty well as his right hand man. There's no Eddie Izzard returning to voice Reepicheep so we get Simon Pegg instead. He's fine, despite the fact that his vocal performance feels like a slight step down from Izzard's fun turn. But it's Poulter who steals a handful of scenes, even when he's being an absolutely slappable pain in the backside for the first third of the film. He's entertaining to dislike, and then gradually becomes easier to like as the story allows him to be changed by everything he experiences.

It's Michael Apted sliding into the director's chair this time, working from the script by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and Michael Petroni (the other newcomer), and he does a nice job of following on from the previous films, in terms of the look and feel of the thing, while taking viewers in a slightly different direction. There are times when this feels more like a Pirates Of The Caribbean movie (and I know not everyone will view that as an improvement), thanks to the menagerie of creatures, the action sequences, and the nautical nature of it all, and times when, just occasionally, it feels like a film that could have been just as much fun with a lower budget and some lovely stop-motion work in place of the CGI, in the vein of an old Harryhausen flick.

It's a shame that this is where the series ended, considering the fact that there were other adventures fans of the books may have wanted to see, but it's also not a bad thing that it finished on a such a relative high note.

And, as a recurring way to end these Narnia-focused reviews, can we all just agree that Aslan is a Superlion who could always help everyone a lot sooner than he does? Bloody poser, just waiting for his big moment in the finale to save the day and then pretend it was a close call.*

*I did warn you that I would also end this Narnia review with this statement.

7/10

You can buy the boxset here.
Americans can get the movies here.

Queen Of The Damned (2002)

Despite never having read the source material, I understand why fans of the book would have problems with the movie version of Interview With The Vampire. Tom Cruise wasn't the first star that anyone had thought of as a good fit for the BIG role, Lestat, and any adaptation of a beloved book is bound to upset a portion of the readers, no matter who is involved. I happen to really like Interview With The Vampire (perhaps being unfamiliar with the source material helped me to enjoy it on a purely cinematic level, and Neil Jordan rarely does wrong). I cannot say the same for this film, a vampire tale so mind-bogglingly inept that I am amazed anyone agreed to it.

Lestat is played this time by Stuart Townsend. He's rested for some time and comes back out of hibernation to find that he can posit himself as a nu-metal/goth rock star. This is incredibly easy for him, and the fact that he is open about his tendency to bare fangs and crave blood only adds to his image, and his appeal. Other vampires are not happy with his publicity and fame, which means lots of them want him dead. There's also the return of the titular queen of the damned, Queen Akasha (played by Aaliyah), and a captivated young woman named Jesse (Marguerite Moreau) wanting to get close to Lestat for reasons she doesn't fully understand.

In case I wasn't clear in the first paragraph, Queen Of The Damned is a horrible movie, but it's horrible in enough ways to be fun. Everything is so wildly inconsistent (from the quality of the acting to the accents, and even the character motivations) that viewers have to resign themselves quite early on to either just accepting the nonsense they're about to watch or giving up completely. Maybe this all works better on the page, and I can imagine that it would, but the script, by Scott Abbott and Michael Petroni, is content to throw together scenes and dialogue that would be bad even in the cheapest of straight-to-disc vampire movies. I'm not sure how I would have reacted if I'd paid to see this in the cinema, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been as cheerful as I am right now.

Director Michael Rymer was clearly told what had to be in the film; namely slow-motion shots of the glamorous cast members, plenty of nu-metal and mopey rock tracks (seriously, my hair developed corn rows just watching this movie, and I almost changed my named from Kevin to Kevinescence), and vampire attacks shown with the kind of special effects and camerawork usually reserved for 21st century Steven Seagal movies.

Townsend is the one who has to endure the most embarrassment, whether he's pretending to be a vampiric rock god or talking to his "master" (Vincent Perez) in front of a giant billboard of himself, with the leather-clad crotch positioned immediately behind the two. Moreau is also quite bad, although gets away with it a bit more because of the fact that she is effectively mesmerised for the majority of the movie, as is Perez (although that's also because it's hard to watch his performance without thinking of how it could be improved by replacing him with someone from the previous Lestat movie). Paul McGann doesn't have much to do, nor does Lena Olin, though she is good with her limited screentime, and the only cast member who manages to rise above the material and emanate some real presence is Aaliyah, appearing onscreen just in time to save viewers from slipping into a comatose state. If, as per the title, the film had been more about her character and less about the adventures of a rockstar Lestat then this may have been a much better viewing experience.

Not one I'll ever want to revisit, this is a film so bad that I'm amazed Townsend managed to keep a career. It doesn't even feel like a story continuing on from Interview With The Vampire. I hope, once filming wrapped, that most of the people involved here took some time to themselves to think about what they did and figure out some small way to atone for it.

3/10

Masochists can buy the movie here.
American masochists can buy it here.