It's not bad


Exorcism movies are hard to do. You walk a fine line between horror going full evil dead, theology for entertainment, contorting actors, and using prayer as the primary battle against the demon possessing the person. It's especially hard with modern audiences being used to physical altercations with monsters and demons.

The bad: it's a Hollywood exorcism movie. You're getting cliché CGI, lighting, music, and pacing. It's a tight runtime so the audience doesn't really experience a realistic depiction of the time and process. It's always a race against time and the world is at stake. This movie falls into this. The movie needs to be shocking and scary rather than thoughtful, eerie, and tense. Because of this, the family isn't interesting and you don't really worry about the boy.

The good: Russell Crow has a loveable character in his depiction of Amourth. His candor is different from the usual moody dark priests we usually see on movies like this. He carries this movie and it's a great performance.

Having read a lot on exorcism and books by Exorcist, its sad that the depiction is rarely handled well by studios. They're pushing the horror elements which become typical and laughable. When it came to the original Exorcist, the audience grew to care about Reagan before fearing the demon possessing her. The Exorcism of Emily Rose also did this well. Unfortunately, the Pope's Exorcist is missing this. We barely know the family and that works against it.

I'd give it a 6 out of 10. Crow was great.

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I agree, I went to see it last night. You are so right about Hollywood trying to sensationalize these cases, and upping the ante on every exorcism movie that comes out, trying to out do the original. This one was good, I liked Russell Crow, I even liked the story along the Spanish Inquisition. I am somewhat ignorant of other religions, I know things happened, but not really why they happened, if that makes sense?

I like the subject matter, although in theory it should terrify me, but I am going to see if I can find some books on Father Amourth, and recently I found a podcast called "The Exorcist Files", That is very interesting to me.

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I hadn't realized it was released yet. When I saw a preview a few weeks ago it didn't have a date on it. Figured it was one of these far off movies that they tend to plug.

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Can only agree. It's serviceable, with solid acting. But any movie that falls back on the typical and terrible CGI jaw-extension gag is going to suffer in other ways as well. There are bits to like here, but it's paced too quickly, doesn't let the story settle in (although that's something missing from most modern movies), barely generates any sense of dread at all, and the ending is too over-the-top and CGI-laden for its own good. I do like that the story sets up sequels (already in the works) and the pairing of the two priests, along with the quiet moments between them. But the end result is perhaps just above mediocre in my view. For me it was a mixed bag.
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.

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I'm glad someone else agrees about the acting. Russell Crow was really interesting in this.

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It's a forgettable movie, not much if any scares. Wouldn't even watched it if it wasn't for Crowe. He ups this movie's rating from like 4-5 to 6. The other priest is a good character too, I liked the chemistry between the two. Other than that, movie's not worth your time, unless you're a fan of Crowe.

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I was going to disagree with the “not worth your time” bit but then I realized you’re absolutely right, if you enjoy Crowe’s work it’s worth a watch, if *only* for his performance, I did enjoy Ralph Ineson’s work in voicing Asmodeus. That was an excellent choice of casting. I initially thought it was Andy Serkis, they sound similar to me, and I love his voice/acting/directing as well.

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