 The Wicker Man was not screened for critics in the U.S. but Peter Howell of the Toronto Star got a look at it, presumably at a public preview screening. Howell notes that it may be "a tad unreasonable" for the filmmakers to "be burned at the stake for what they've done to The Wicker Man, that most British of cult movies." He accuses Cage and writer/director Neil LaBute of "taking a classic of downbeat cinema, a cautionary tale about conflicting religious values, and transforming it into a feminist encounter session with dialogue akin to a valedictorian speech delivered by Britney Spears."The expected dreadful reviews materialized over the weekend. Kyle Smith in the New York Post figured that Warner Bros. released the Wicker Man remake "without previews because it would rather lose money than be accused of misogyny." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post recalled that after the original film was released, there were rumors that Rod Stewart, whose girlfriend, Britt Eklund, performed a nude dance in it, tried to buy up all existing copies and have them destroyed. "Only Stewart can say whether this is true, and he's not talking," Hunter wrote. "I do believe that in a few years, Nicolas Cage will buy up all the prints to this Wicker Man and burn them. I'll be happy to help him." Of Crank, Liam Lacey wrote in the Toronto Globe and Mail that it was "so blatantly contrived it could be called The Fast and the Spurious." Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel wrote that it was "so hyped up, it's the movie equivalent of a speedball shot straight into a major artery, and every bit as irresponsible." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post summed it up as, "brutal, nasty and, thank God, short." And Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News wrote that the movie "has an excellent shot at ending 2006 as the worst film of the year." |
