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Like most recent events, the 2021 Sundance Film Festival has gone from an in-person showcase to a virtual showcase. Despite the change, we’ll still bring you reviews and information on the most interesting experiences we find, from indie movies to virtual reality experiences.
Ghostland prisoners looks like a movie made for Nicolas Cage. Prolific Japanese director Sion Sono’s English debut – Western audiences may know him best thanks to the weird and horrific series Tokyo Vampire Hotel on Amazon Prime Video – and it mixes elements from westerns, samurai movies, and post-apocalyptic action flicks. Cage’s genre work has grown into a genre itself, thanks to cult hits like Mandy and Color out of space. So at first glance it looks like a perfect match – but Ghostland prisoners never manages to rise to the level of its cast or its premises.
The premise is, of course, incredible. Cage, playing a hardened criminal known only as Hero, is enlisted by a man called the Governor to save his granddaughter from a treacherous, and possibly supernatural, place called Ghostland. But he takes some elaborate precautions, as Hero is infamous for evading capture. Cage’s character is equipped with a leather suit full of explosives and a questionable array of sensors. If he makes a move as if to attack a woman, for example, a bomb in his arm will explode. Likewise, if he’s also aroused, a bomb in his crotch will explode.
The world, meanwhile, draws on a variety of inspirations to create visually stunning settings. Sheriffs in cowboy hats mingle with sword-wielding rōnin, and the Ghostland itself is like a more trippy version of a Fall– a wasteland in style, with an eerie cult that turns humans into mannequins and fights to keep the hands of a giant clock from moving so that time stands still. When the inhabitants of Ghostland see Hero for the first time, they inexplicably begin to sing about his “thick red blood”. It’s a weird and disorienting world, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.
Sadly, the premise and world-building feel largely wasted in a movie that doesn’t respect either. For starters, there is the star performer. Arguably the main draw of this movie is Cage at its Cage plus: manic, savage, overactive. But its performance is disappointing. For the most part, he’s just angry, but not the kind of funny anger that makes a B movie enjoyable. There is an uncomfortable rage as he shouts “I’m going to cut you off in karate!” to a crowd of strangers or shouts at the woman he saves from undressing. There are some fun dialogue – the most notable is Cage yelling the word “testicle!” in front of a large audience – but they are far too rare.
And then there is the story, which is completely incomprehensible. That’s not always a bad thing, as there are a lot of genre films where the narrative is just an excuse for some cool action scenes, but that’s not the case here. (The only interesting fight sequence happens at the very end of the movie.) Ghostland overwhelms you with elements of the story, but somehow things never get any clearer. The narrative is both underdeveloped and overexplained. There are plenty of flashbacks, dreamy footage, 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 simple story.
Really, it’s a film that comes in its own way. I want to to watch Nic Cage in an explosive leather suit dig through the wreckage of a post-industrial wasteland while battling samurai, cowboys, mad cults, and toxic zombies. I mean, who doesn’t? But Ghostland don’t give you enough. Instead, you have to go through unnecessarily long exposure and far too many “weird for weird reasons” moments to get to the right things. It’s still a movie destined to achieve cult status based on its premise alone. But when you head to a theater years from now to indulge in a marathon of Cage’s best genre work, it sure won’t be headlining.
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