"The Wicker Man" Review

"The Wicker Man" begins with Nicholas Cage dressed as a policeman, confidently patrolling on a motorcycle. It ends with him comically rattling around dirt pathways on rickety bicycles (at one point bike-jacking one at gunpoint) and lumbering through a forest in a bear costume. His character, Edward Malus, has lost his way in the course of leaving the familiar behind, and such is the case with the creators of "The Wicker Man," leaving the successful elements of a cult favorite movie behind and losing their way in a nonsensical revision of a potentially powerful story.

In this retelling of the 1973 thriller, Officer Edward Malus is recovering from the emotional stress caused by his witnessing the fiery death of a mother and daughter. While on medical leave, he receives a letter from a former lover begging him to assist in finding her missing child. He travels to a remote, private island off the coast of Washington state where he is reunited with Willow, the quirky young woman who had vanished without explanation years before.

Malus' investigation into the child's disappearance introduces him to the island's strange inhabitants: a proud caste of women and an underclass of mute, unkempt men who perform the menial labor. Eventually, Malus' detective work leads him to an unimagined and shocking revelation regarding the fate of the missing girl.

"The Wicker Man" was originally a tale of emotional and spiritual conflict between a rigid Christian man and a sexually liberated society of isolated celtic pagans. In the remake by writer/director Neil LaBute, the sexual and religious tensions have been removed to be replaced by a crude sort of gender conflict between the members of the matriarchal society, all portrayed as unappealing, and Malus, a clueless but well-meaning male. The entire story is shot through with gratuitous and unexplained hallucinatory fright sequences that become tiresome for their non sequiturs and needless repetitiveness.

In the lead roles, Nicholas Cage and Kate Behan have no success at turning their clunky dialog into anything resembling natural discourse, and have little or no chemistry between them.

To its credit, "The Wicker Man" assembles a very talented cast of actresses, including Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist), Molly Parker (Deadwood), Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) and Leelee Sobieski (Joy Ride).

Hopefully, the publicity and word-of-mouth surrounding this unsuccessful remake will instead introduce a new generation to the low-budget, high-concept pleasures of the original Wicker Man.