Directed by John Boorman
Staring Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Kitty Winn, Paul Henreid, James Earl Jones and Ned Beatty
And to think some people out there have been complaining that I've been doing too many positive reviews. Hopefully this one will tide you over, because Exorcist II is one of the biggest heaping helpings of shit that you'll ever see. Or, barring your inability to be as much of a man as me, read about.
Before we get going on this legendary flick of craptacular proportions, a disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the first film. I know, I know. Throw me in that safe room with Peter Griffin. Now, I certainly don't HATE the movie, but at the same time I've never seen why everybody else seems to love the damn thing so much. It certainly has its moments, but I dunno...it fell flat for me, probably in no small part due to the fact that I didn't see it until I was in my early '20s. Call it the handicap of being a curmudgeonly adult. Still, for as much as I'm not a fan of the original 1974 classic, this movie makes it look like the roof of the Sistine Chapel by comparison (/horrible metaphor).
How could it possibly go so wrong? They had the original star returning, a decent concept, another freaky score by Ennio Morricone, and a big budget. The general consensus? John Boorman, the guy in the director's chair. This dude...yeah, he certainly liked his stuff to be as trippy as possible, and he used the story that he was given here to make something that is effectively a zillion times more bizarre than you'd ever expect. It certainly made sense to give Boorman the shot at filling William Friedkin's shoes for this sequel; this was the dude that did Deliverance, after all. But he also gave us this:
Yeah.
I will give the movie this - it has one of the creepiest opening sequences that you'll ever see. Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton, doing his best Gregory Peck impersonation and sticking to it, dammit) is attempting to exorcise a woman who claims she can heal the sick. The whole thing goes horribly wrong, winding up with the woman catching fire and burning alive. It might not sound like much, but it's just the WAY it is shot, with the music by Morricone and the deep oranges and blacks setting the scene that really get to you. Call it glandular. And folks, that's how we get the "Priest doing his best to exorcise his OWN demons" part of the story that we also got much more effectively in the first film, and it also means that it's time to switch focus to...our returning star.
Folks, basing the second movie in the Exorcist series around the character of Regan MacNeil made perfect sense of paper. But the way that the character's arc was laid out in this script...yikes. Linda Blair was definitely up for what she was required to do, but unfortunately, what she's required to do in this film involves a lot of sitting perfectly still with a mind-reading device attached to her head. And I'm not making that up. See, Regan is now in the care of Sharon Spencer (Kitty Winn) and receiving psychiatric guidance from a doctor played by Louise Fletcher. And Fletcher's character here can pretty much already call that Nobel Peace Prize, because she has invented a MIND READING DEVICE that both herself and Father Lamont periodically use to invade her cerebral space because...reasons. These are all long, terminally boring and unscary sequences that take up something like 20 minutes of the movie. Trust me, they drag.
It's here where the movie really starts to fly off the rails, as these dalliances into Regan's psyche lead us to deepest, darkest Africa, where the demon Pazuzu is now targeting a young boy who was once also a healer of the sick. As an adult, he's played by James Earl Jones, so you know we've got some must-see TV here. I say must-see TV because this movie is on AMC Fearfest EVERY year. You know, take my word for it, this movie IS worth a watch at least once in your life, because it's simply INSANE. The whole idea contained from this point on involves Lamont attempting to track down this African healer, with Pazuzu's mission of stamping out the world's goodness by eliminating its healers being the primary plot device.
Coupled in between those aforementioned lengthy bits as the heroes attempt to gain clues by reading Regan's mind. They're slow. They're long. And they're repetitive, which I'm attempting to convey by continuing to harp on it.
While I wasn't terrified of the first film by any means, I'll admit that some of the stuff in it unnerved me quite a bit. This movie has exactly two unnerving sequences - the opening and a later scene where Regan, seemingly possessed, wanders out on the ledge of a skyscraper in what was apparently a VERY dangerously filmed sequence with Linda Blair pretty much dangling close to certain death with nothing separating her from 100 feet of certain doom. That's the thing with Boorman - when it comes to imagery, he's AMAZING, and there's stuff in this film that is actually quite memorable for that reason. Story-wise, his stuff tends to be a mess, and it ain't just this movie. The proof? Sean Connery in man-panties. 'Nuff said.
It starts with the script, which was all extremely ill-advised from the get-go. The whole "dual continents" thing is an interesting idea on paper that isn't executed very well, sometimes with plot developments where we're left to guess what's happening (like that weird scene where Lamont finds James Earl Jones in full tribal costume and is then immediately getting shown around his office by the same actor wearing a business suit). It's also never really clear what is still happening with Regan - is Pazuzu still in her? Still trying to possess her? Who knows, the script sure doesn't.
And the locusts...this movie might have more locust photography per minute than any other film in cinematic history. And this includes The Reaping.
No further evidence is needed here. I give this flick * out of ****. If you get the impression that this is a bad movie, I've done my job. Still...it's a movie that you can't quite understand HOW bad and misguided it is until you've actually seen it. So next October, when AMC inevitably trots this out again, give it a go because this is pretty much a textbook example of how NOT to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment