Seen: July 24th, 2007
Format: Blue-Ray
Rating: 4
I saw the original The Wicker Man quite a while ago. When this version came out, I cringed a little because the original is such a cult classic and somewhere in me there's a unexpurgated rant about how Hollywood keeps screwing up great films, both vintage and foreign, by remaking them for a "wider market". When it finally became available for rental, I figure I could have yet one more example to prop up my opinion.
I was right.
This first thing that's surprising about this film is that it's done by Neil LaBute. LaBute makes films that are generally about people behaving very inappropriately towards other people. It's can hardly be called a genre, but it is a rather constant theme with him. At first I thought it strange that he's choose this film to remake, but after thinking about it, it makes a whole lot of sense.
Unfortunately, this tendency dramatically changes some of the fundamentals of the film. Others have pointed out that unlike the original, the protagonist in this film is essentially an innocent. Edward is interested only in preserving the live of another, someone he's somehow bonded to, who he views as an innocent in what slowly evolves into a fairly deep plot. While he's brash and a bit self -important, he doesn't really exhibit any self-absorbed sense of authority that we might expect.
The people who he runs up against, however, appear almost evil in their manipulation and contempt of Edward. They treat him more like chattel, something less than human, in their actions toward him.
To provide a sense of justification for this callousness, LaBute has invented a stringent matriarchal society as the locus of the story. This provides him the ability to once again pit the sexes against each other, showcasing and hyperbolizing their differences to the point of conflict. He enhances this juxtaposition by introducing the bee metaphor, which strengthens and supports the matriarchal nature of the society, and proves a secret weakness in Edward.
There's a lot that didn't sit right with this film for me. A major part was moving the action from the UK to the US. The backstory used to justify the pagan nature of the community feels very thin and flimsy when compared to the local nature of those traditions in the original. Everything that follows feels highly displaced because of this. The strange "metaphysical" connection between the girl he chases is a bit strange as well. I can't resolve it's presence with the rest of the conspiracy. It's too convenient a device to set things in motion and is never really resolved. In the end is more of a distraction than anything else.
Cage's performance was highly variable . I like Nick, but his Edward seemed shallow. He bounced between being stricken, authoritative, melancholy and protective, all without much change in demeanor or motivation. It's hard to imagine what actually drives him. The depth of his indignation about what was happening around him never really surfaced. This lack of tension, combined with the depth of the deception perpetrated to bring him to the island, makes him more sympathetic than the protagonist in the original. He lacks the dogmatic conviction that would make the film more morally ambiguous, a strength of the first film.
In many ways the world that LaBute constructs is a bit too cliche to the point of being harsh. While it is consistent in it's theme and treatment, it all felt contrived and convenient, lacking any kind of internal dissension to make it interesting.
LaBute's re-visioning of this film isn't terrible, but it does change the dynamics of the story quite a bit. The addition of some modern elements is interesting, but seem more metaphorical than practical, cheapening them a bit. I prefer the original, but this version is more accessible to the casual viewer, which is the point, I suppose.
The Good: A few interesting takes
The Bad: Melodramatic conspiracies
The Ugly: Knee injuries
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