by Christina A. Armani

Created on: February 21, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

The summer of 2006 gave us many Hollywood remakes. One of them is a remake of the 1974 British Screenplay The Wicker Man. I have seen the original twice (by choice) with my English professor and it's one of my favorite movies. As for the new remake with Nicholas Cage, I have three words worst remake ever.

At first I was very excited about the remake since the original was very controversial but this one only has the controversial burning. For those who haven't seen it, the original version follows basically the same story line except that the officer is a virgin sacrifice as opposed to an officer connected to a matriarchal society. I would hardly call a matriarchal society with feminist beliefs a cult. I don't understand the car accident scenario or the cursing police officer dressed up in suits?

Since this movie is based on a thriller, it's also called a thriller. However, you can't really call this one a thriller. While it did have some climatic moments and a good bit of suspense, it was nothing compared to the thrillers of our day. While the original one can truly be called an emotional thriller, this one isn't an emotional thriller at all. While I was looking forward to looking to Nicholas Cage play a stiff uptight man in search of a missing girl, I did really like the echo of his scream at the end of the movie.

Nicholas Cage did some pretty good acting and he did a great job portraying a man being lied to. However, I do think he would have done a great job with the role of a stuffy, uptight zealot. Another thing I also don't like is that they only mentioned the fertility ritual in passing when they showed one in the original. No I'm not going to say what they are, you have to see the original. All things aside though, the story line is very good and the movie has a Hitchcockian feel to it. I would give the movie three stars on it's own but since I've seen the original as well, I give this remake two stars and one thumb up. Want to see what I'm taking about? See both versions and decide for yourself which one is better. As for this new version, I give it one and a half stars and one thumb up.

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