L'esorcista del papa

It's a double edged sword when an actor becomes super famous. On one side, they are extremely marketable and gain great roles. However, on the other side, we tend to see the actor in the movie and not the character which distracts from the experience of the story.

This was not the case with this film. I'm not an accent specialist nor a native Italian speaker, but Russell's portrayable had me convinced.

The story itself was exciting and intriguing. There were some nonsensical aspects of course. Its a very fictional film with its own share of contradictions that are noticeable. The authenticity of the Vatican traditions and language barriers might have been compromised, but as a normal viewer, none of it was recognizable thus not bothered.

Overall I give this a 7. It's not going to leave a lasting impression on me, but It was a good to watch.

This is a decent movie. Entertaining and basically a new adaptation of the old Exorcist movie from 1973. While based on a real character the story is completely made up but at least entertaining. If you like horror type movies this may be ideal for you. Any while it is not a great movie, it is heads and shoulders above much of the awful PC garbage that Hollywood produces these days. Russell Crowe is quite good as Father Gabriel Amorth as is Franco Nero who plays the Pope in this movie. While I can live without some of the silliness like a possessed person crawling around like a spider, the movie is still entertaining, which is the reason we watch movies in the first place.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed The Pope's Exorcist. After initially seeing the trailers, I wrote this movie off as a standard possession film that I have seen time and time again, and while most of that is still true, there is something about this film that made it a joy to watch.

The film does not attempt to do anything particularly new or groundbreaking in the genre, but everything it has is handled with care and precision. The direction is fantastic, with a very quick pace that makes each scene have a sense of urgency as our characters attempt to perform the exorcism. There is particularly deep lore that is established within the church structure, with different factions and politics at play that add a slightly different dimension rather than just your run-of-the-mill "insert random priest here."

My favorite aspect of the film is the acting. I think all of the adult characters do a tremendous job here. Russell Crowe kills it in every scene he is in and definitely gives an entirely different take on the exorcist character. Where most are intensely serious and melodramatic, Crowe adds a bit of whimsicalness and youth to the character that creates a calming presence to every intense scene. His rapport with Daniel Zovatto is excellent. The two really play off each other well and carried the film in many ways. Alex Essoe was great, although underutilized. The two children were okay. The boy gave a very stereotypical portrayal of a possessed child, and the daughter was flat in many ways.

My only complaint about the entire film is its lack of originality and the story. Every single beat is something that we have seen before; there were no new or fresh ideas that were interjected into the story. The tension was fine, but nothing was particularly scary. Overall, if not for the film's fantastic director and cast, it would have been a bomb.

Score: 63% 👍 Verdict: Decent.

Oh dear. I'm not sure if the makers of this movie were going for comedy horror or something else but it didn't really work. It was basically a film of silly voices. There wasn't enough tension to hold my engagement or enough story to keep me interested.

Some of the effects were good but nothing I haven't seen before. Russell Crowe was enjoyable to watch but it was difficult to take his character seriously and I'm not sure as a viewer I was supposed to. It was all just a bit too silly for my taste. I didn't believe the setting, it was too fantastical and the family characters were more like caricatures. It sort of hinted at a story for them but that didn't really go anywhere. So, superfluous and silly but not awful.

I honestly went in their with really low expectations. I walked out of The Devil in Me as we've seen it all before it's the same formula and nothing ever will live up to the original Exorcist. I think I can name 3 good exorcism movies. The Exorcist, Exorcist 3 and the Exorcism of Emily Rose. The plot really gets moving fast! There's no real character building but what I will say is Russell Crowe really does play the part well. It's a mixture of a great performance and a parody..whatever it is it works! It doesn't really do anything new, we've seen it all before but for some reason or another this was better than expected. Give it a watch.