by Rebecca Mikulin

Created on: April 03, 2009

Looking for some otherworldly thrills? This remake of the 1973 movie The Wicker Man may be just what you're looking for.

Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) is a motorcycle cop. He does his job the best he can, but sadly doesn't always succeed. He is haunted by his most recent failure to save a mother and daughter trapped in a burning car. Ready for life to get more complicated? Ready or not, Malus receives a hand-delivered letter in his workplace. It is from a woman he was supposed to marry but that ran out shortly before the wedding years and years before. She confesses that she now has a daughter, but that her daughter Rowan is missing and has no one else to turn to. Her letter signs off with a plea to Malus to join her on Summer's Isle where she is convinced her daughter must be, being too young to leave the island by herself.

After much deliberation Edward gives in, mainly because a child's life may be at stake. He bribes the pilot of a small aircraft who normally flies food to the secluded island community to take him to the island.

He lands to find a colonial-type village full of outlandish, unwelcoming people. To top it off, none of them have ever heard of Rowan. Then they tell him that Willow (Kate Beahan) is merely grieving and show Malus the supposed grave of Rowan.

Malus is thwarted again and again by the hostile "Sisters". Then strange things start to happen. Malus discovers that the few men on the island are constantly working and cannot or will not speak. Rowan's grave is dug up to reveal nothing but a scorched doll that had once been hers. Malus meets with the cryptic Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn), who informs him that she is the voice of the Goddess on Earth, that the island was founded after her ancestors found a certain area in Massachusetts to be inhospitable.

It soon becomes painfully clear that this girl's life is in terrible danger...or is it?

First off, I know there are many many people who probably won't agree with my positive opinion. I think this is for a couple of reasons, the main one probably being that there is very little action. The story moves forward slowly, but one really has to pay attention to keep things straight as scenes are split between reality and Cage's character's visions of a young girl in a red sweater. There are a lot of strange twists and the ending is very difficult to foresee. I'll admit to guessing at some of it in the last half-hour, but the very end leaves one really thinking about what could happen next.

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