Prisoners of the Ghostland

Genre-bending, yes. But somehow finds a way to ruin each individual genre they play with. Utterly nonsensical plot, weak effects, not a single likable character, horrid dialogue, and some pretty atrocious lighting don't make for a great movie watching experience.

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.

The story of "Prisoners of the Ghostland" is poorly explained, and I don't really understand it. Visuals are strange, bordering on bizarre. I can't say I enjoyed it.

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.

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.