Prisoners of the Ghostland

I'm going to start off looking at the 10 star reviews. I just don't understand how anyone could be so positive about this movie. I felt like I was in a Redlettermedia's "Best of the Worst". Never have I laughed so much and so hard at parts of a film that I did not think were intentionally funny. Never have I ever face palmed so many times or had to stop a movie due to pure confusion. Not confusion due to complexity or something like that but due to wondering "why" as in why did the filmmaker chose any of this? This film is astonishingly absurd and not in a good way.

There was one scene that just screamed Mandy and low and behold this film is from the makers of Mandy. I did not like Mandy, Pig, tolerated Willie's Wonderland and skipped Color Out of Space. I'm coming to the conclusion that I just don't like Cage or his acting anymore. I don't really blame him though. The Rock, Con Air and Face Off will always be classics to me but this is pure grade A nonsense. I never put spoilers in my reviews but for this film I just have to mention something that happens in the begin that really doesn't spoil anything but if you are adverse this is your spoiler alert. Cage is given a car to go on his timed quest. He gets out of the car and takes a beat-up bike and everyone thinks he is so cool. At this point I thought the film was going to be intentionally funny and self aware. Nope, he gets about a hundred feet and is stopped by someone who throws him the keys to the same car. He than drives the car...What!? I am still so baffled.

Anyways this is getting too long so if you like films that focus on Asian culture, Cage, decent scenery and camera work you might enjoy this more than me but I think I'm being way too generous giving this a 4. I laughed so much. I just, I just don't understand. Why? Why to everything.

Nicolas Cage did it again! I don't get what his deal is? He's not a bad actor so it's always a mystery to me why he agrees to those stinkers all the time. Does he even read the scripts? Or is it just about money for him? Will he just do anything as long as you pay him? Prisoners Of The Ghostland is another movie with Nicolas Cage that is painful to watch. Not visually though, that was actually fine and that's why I scored it with three stars, but the story, or more the lack of a comprehensible story, that's what makes this movie bad. Nothing makes really sense, you almost know it from the start but you continue watching it in the hope something will change, but it doesn't... Another timewasting movie that I wished I didn't watch.

This is a really weird film. The main premise is understandable, but the rest of what happens in this movie makes literally no sense. I watched this for Nick Cage, and of course Cage does a good job acting his part, but everyone else not so much. 5/10.

In a weird old west Japanese world, the Governor (Bill Moseley) rules a town with his time obsession and his stable of young women. Ghostland is the wasteland beyond. Some of the girls escape. The Governor uses captured criminal Hero (Nicolas Cage) to retrieve his favorite Bernice (Sofia Boutella). He puts Hero in a leather suit rigged to explode. Hero's former partner Psycho (Nick Cassavetes) is a real psycho.

This is Escape from New York and Judge Dredd and whatever craziness coming out of director Sion Sono's brain. Nick Cage is doing more of his weirdness and I applaud him. I want to him all the room he needs. In this case, it's too weird even for me. It gets unwieldy. There's one small example. In the first group tick tock moment, not everybody is moving their heads in the same way. Sono needs to sell that by doing disturbing unison movements. I'm willing to go with the weirdness but it has to be done better. This is style over control. This is walking on a knife's edge. In the end, I can't recommend this except for Cage's completists and Sono fans.

I don't know, Prisoners of the Ghostland got some interesting ideas but the whole affair looks unfinished, unpolished. Even the visual quality of the movie would need some serious editing and reworking - everything looks like some takes from pre-production status. How Nicolas Cage and Sofia Boutella got involved into this movie, I can't understand. For sure, Prisoners of the Ghostland is not the worst movie ever but rather a disappointing and unsatisfying experience. Not recommended, or only to those who want to watch everything that got Cage and/or Boutella casted. This is not a trip on acid but rather a hangover after a night with too much cheap beer involved.