Prisoners of Ghostland review: Nic Cage gets a Mad Max samurai movie

Polygon’s entertainment team is reported to the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which becomes virtual for the first time ever. Here’s what you need to know about the indie gems that will soon turn to streaming services, theaters and the movie time spirit.

Loglyn: When Bernice (Sofia Boutella) goes missing in a post-apocalyptic desert, her rich, well-connected adoptive grandfather jumps a bank robber (Nicolas Cage) out of jail, traps him in a leather suit equipped with bombs and gives fetch him five days – or get explosive consequences.

Langlyn: Japanese filmmaker Zion Sono has made a career out of extremism. Movies like the four-hour sex and religion Love exposure and the street band musical Tokyo tribe are the daydreams of a moviegoer. Coupling him with Cage not only seems like a good idea, it sounds like cosmic law. These two chaotic good titans had to make a movie together before they name it.

Too deep on the plot of Prisoners of the Ghostland is not so much a spoilage issue as a futile attempt to describe a genre mash-up with hedonistic impulses, but here’s a foretaste here anyway. ) is locked up in the dungeons of Samurai Town. In the eastern and western alcoves, samurai roam the streets and a Kentucky Fried lord named The Governor (Bill Moseley) rules like a mob boss. The governor recruits Hero as his own one-man killer to get Bernice out of the post-apocalyptic dead zone outside the walls. To ensure the criminal does not get too handy, the mafioso Hero includes what is fair to call Chekov’s Limb-Splodin ‘Leather Suit. If something goes wrong with the mission, it’s bye precious body parts. There are even two small bombs on Hero’s testicles. No spoilage, but Sono does not let the ball hang in the air for long.

Image: RLJE Films

What follows is basically that of Nic Cage Mad Max: Fury Road. The ‘Ghostland’ of the title is an irradiated area with a fair share of infected civilians looking for a better life, and zombie creepsters for Cage to plow through. When Hero contacts Bernice, the two unravel the mysteries behind How Things Got This Way, and why some desert cultists shout ‘THE PROPHECY! ”And“ THICK RED BLOOD! ” During the journey, Hero recalls the traumatic moments of the robbery-wrong, and he works through the wrongs of his past to find something that looks like redemption. He also fights a bunch of ninjas.

What’s there? Prisoners of the Ghostland trying to do? Beat up the bombing of Hollywood blockbusters against the bombing of the Japanese action cinema to see what catches fire. From elevating a motorcycle cage as the pinnacle of cool (someone outside the screen literally saying “He’s … so cool”) to the sheer splendor of the Kurosawa tropics, Sono has a globe-twisting taste and no restriction to every stray idea on the screen. Unexpectedly, however, it is one of the director’s most important efforts. What easy in a Crutchsuch as exercise in hyperactivity is done with a steady hand and appreciation for the details. Sono wants his audience to lush in the cruel beauty of Boutella using a hole gun.

In his notes for the film, Sono says that it Prisoners of the Ghostland puts a love of pop entertainment on the screen: ‘What I really wanted to create behind all the distortions of modern society that make the unreal world come true. I believe we live in an irrational world. ‘Hard to disagree, though the film does not spend much time considering these distortions. Yes, Ghostland is the by-product of a toxic spill, and its inhabitants, good and bad, suffer from it. But the potential social or eco-comments never come to light. Instead, what we see is: the ‘ghosts’ are literal, the radiation timeline is mythology and the decimated world is fertile ground for Hero’s Journey prophecies about Cage as the ‘most powerful watch’ or something. It looks like Sono has challenged himself to make the most entertaining movie of all time.

The quote that says it all: [Extreme Nic Cage acting voice] “I AM RADIOACTIVE.”

Does it get there? Prisoners of the Ghostland was prepared for the crammed house, little-drinks-in-midnight movie slot. Presented in the less-than-ideal home venue, by the nature of the virtual Sundance, it’s a delightful love letter to action-movie excess. Like the Wachowskis’ Jupiter ascending or, more literally, Who framed Roger RabbitSono embraces the cartoon nonsense logic to knock Cage to each of the film’s unexpected milestones. The governor is American, so natural he walks out in all whites and a cowboy hat. The samurai warriors may just as well be RPG NPCs waging a sword fight set on Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle”. A series depicting the accident that melts the countryside in a dilapidated shadow of its former self revolves like the pages of a manga across the screen. A star that eyebrows the mouth-agap ‘Wut? ‘face is the glue that holds all the pieces to the collage.

Photo: RLJE Films

But let’s not underestimate our Cage. He rises to Sono’s level. Cage becomes a live-action character with a strangely sprayed Ken-pop makeup and Lee Marvin killer energy. He even has kung-fu grip! In a third act sequence, Cage (or at least a spot on the double armor) goes head-to-head with the head samurai and delivers movements that keep pace with the kinetic camera work. If only Sono could find more for Boutella, Prisoners of the Ghostland would possibly have reached immediate cult status. With action credits such as Kingsman, Atomic Blonde, en Star Trek Beyond according to her name, she is more than capable of performing tricks and choreography. Sono loses her in the shadow of Cage, but again she can really make the hole gun sing.

Much like Sono’s previous films, Prisoners of the Ghostland is striking. The costumes, ranging from radiant outfits to the lavish traditional clothing, tell just as much story as any expositional dialogue. Although the plays sometimes seem like an audio recording, the director’s aggressive dadaist approach continues. Sono brings a minute to the Tokyo-inspired streets of Samurai Town, and seconds later we are in Ghostland, a rubbish dump built by way of Hook. It overflows with strangeness.

What does it get for us? A good reminder that whirlwind action movies do not have to cost $ 200 million. Sono’s production may not catch on like Japan’s anime exports or Korean authors like Bong Joon-ho, but for anyone who is thin by the homogeneity of American superhero cinema, a full back catalog awaits you. Prisoners of the Ghostland is a good, digestible start.

And a comment on Cage: After experiencing some financial difficulties in the 2010s, there is a suspicion that the former A-lister will sign with any text standing at his desk. Okay, yes, there are stinkers in his filmography to support the theory, but Cage, unlike Bruce Willis and his current DGAF-on-DTV career, shows up for every damn movie he’s in. He seems to be living in the strange and extreme. Sono is on the same quest. There is no cynicism in the role of Cage in this role. He is a BIG movie star without BIG movies to play in. Prisoners of the Ghostland demands his style.

The best moment: If it’s unclear above … I really want to talk about what’s happening to the testicular bombs.

When can we see it? Prisoners of the Ghostland will arrive later this year from RLJE Films, the distributor behind the other recent crazy Cage films Mandy and Color outside space.