Sundance 2021: Prisoners of the Ghostland Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Nicholas Cage films as of late have been on the wild side to say the least, often himself as much as the film around him. Suffice it to say that Prisoners of the Ghostland is just more of the same for better or worse. That being said, most viewers have probably already made their minds about this film. Nevertheless, it is still worth a chance solely for its technical prowess alone, featuring beautiful cinematography and impeccable production design, While many will surely struggle at grasping whatever was going on here (and I still don’t), those same people will surely find it hard to not be entertained by whatever it was that happened over the course of its 100+ minute running time. As a result, there’s no real point in mentioning the synopsis in any way as even that won’t help in explaining anything here but it’s definitely bonkers. In the end, this is a film that should be felt rather than analyzed in a deeper way. It’s best to not question things, turn one’s brain off, and surrender themselves to the madness. The film will ultimately live or die based on whether or not viewers can do this (but there has been a long history of this so why would it change now?).

Story aside, the sheer scale of it all was quite impressive to behold. The sheer creativity and imaginativeness on display throughout Prisoners of the Ghostland, despite not knowing what a single bit of it meant other than the clear Mad Max inspiration, also demanded attention as Hero (Cage) navigated its confides. If anything, the film was compelling to watch just to see how much more ridiculous and/or nonsensical it could get in terms of dialog and story and it did. This may seem like a recipe for disaster but the opposite was certainly the case here. Over-the-top with a purpose, the film works as a satire of American action films. Meanwhile, it won’t be for the faint of heart which should come as a surprise to no one. Similarly, a more restrained than usual Cage as Hero, was the delightful bow on top.

Though Prisoners of the Ghostland inevitably already has Cage fans, others should give it a chance.

still courtesy of Sundance

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.