Like the most recent events, the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival went from a face-to-face showcase to a virtual one. Despite the change, we will still bring analysis and insights into the most interesting experiences we encounter, from independent films to VR experiments.
Ghostland Prisoners it looks like a movie made for Nicolas Cage. It is the English debut of the prolific Japanese director Sion Sono – the western audience must know him better from the strange and horrible series Tokyo Vampire Hotel on Amazon Prime Video – and it mixes elements of westerns, samurai films and post-apocalyptic action films. Cage’s gender work has become a genre of its own, thanks to cult hits like Mandy and Color Out of Space. So, on the surface, it looks like a perfect match – but Ghostland Prisoners it never manages to rise to the level of its cast or premise.
The premise is admittedly incredible. Cage, playing a hardened criminal known only as a Hero, is summoned by a man named Governor to rescue his granddaughter from a treacherous and possibly supernatural place called Ghostland. But he takes some elaborate precautions, as the Hero is famous for escaping capture. Cage’s character is equipped with a leather suit full of explosives and a series of questionable sensors. If he makes a move as if he were going to attack a woman, for example, a bomb will explode in his arm. Likewise, if he also gets, uh, excited, a bomb in his groin is going to detonate.
The world, in turn, relies on a variety of inspirations to create some visually beautiful sets. Sheriffs in cowboy hats mix with rōnin wielding swords, and Ghostland itself is like a trippier version of a Fallwasteland-style, complete with a strange cult that turns humans into mannequins and fights to keep the hands of a giant clock from moving so that time stops. When the people of Ghostland see Hero for the first time, they inexplicably start screaming about his “thick red blood”. It’s a strange and disorienting world, and it’s just so much fun to look at.
Unfortunately, the premise and the construction of the world seem largely lost in a film that is not up to par. To start with, there’s the star artist. Arguably, the main attraction of this film is Cage at its maximum Cage: manic, wild, exaggerated. But its performance is disappointing. For the most part, he’s just angry, but not the kind of amusing anger that makes a B movie enjoyable. There is an uncomfortable anger when he yells “I’m going to hit you with a karate!” to a crowd of strangers or screams at the woman he is rescuing to undress. There are some fun snippets of dialogue – the most notable is Cage yelling the word “testicle!” in front of a large audience – but they are very rare.
And there is the story, which is completely incomprehensible. This is not always a bad thing, as there are many genre films where the narrative is just an excuse for cool action scenes, but that is not the case here. (The only interesting fight sequence happens right at the end of the movie.) Instead, Ghostland it overwhelms you with elements of history, but somehow things never get clearer. The narrative is poorly developed and overexplained. There are many flashbacks, dream sequences and even a scene involving a literal slide show about the horrors of toxic waste. All of this serves to complicate what should be a direct story.
In fact, this is a disturbing film. Me would you like watching Nic Cage in an explosive leather suit digging through the wreckage of a post-industrial desert while battling samurai, cowboys, crazed cults and toxic zombies. I mean, who doesn’t? But Ghostland doesn’t give you enough of that. Instead, you have to go through an unnecessarily long exposure and many “weird because of the strangers” moments to get to the good stuff. It is still a film destined to achieve cult status based only on its premise. But when you go to the theater a few years from now to indulge in a marathon of the best works of the Cage genre, that will definitely not be the main attraction.