Le rituel

I'm guessing that Russell Crowe was busy for this latest exercise in priestly exorcism so an hardly recognisable Al Pacino decided to have a go. He is a Capetian father drafted in to help the reluctant Fr. Joseph (Dan Stevens) with a particularly difficult task. Fr. Theophilus must help rid the poor young Emma (Abigail Cowen) of an unwanted bodily guest. His methods do not impress the rather naive young father, nor the sisters in attendance as she increasingly resorts to involuntary bleeding, foul language, violent outbursts and even the usual hanging upside down from the ceiling lamp trick whilst under relentless assault from the repetitious bible verses being read across what I counted are at least seven of those ritual attempts at expulsion. Sound familiar? Well that's because it is. Aside from Pacino turning in a slightly different style of performance from his norm, the rest of this hasn't an original bone in it's body. Indeed, its only claim to fame appears to be that it is based on the original, almost century old, transcriptions from Fr. Joseph of events that are really supposed to have happened but we've seen this all predictably play out so many times before that even the traditional collapsible bed doesn't turn an head - spiritual or metaphysically. The one element that does provoke a little interest is, perhaps, the clear indication that Catholicism in the 1920s was riddled with incantations, superstitions and a degree of symbolism that probably hadn't changed since much since there was a Borgia on the throne of St. Peter. This might work on the telly at Halloween of you're full of Grappa, but as a cinema experience it is disappointing and entirely forgettable, sorry.

There is absolutely nothing interesting about this movie. There is the setup and then everything after that is just the same old same old growling voice theatrics of every other exorcism movie since the exorcism movie to start the whole exorcism movie craze, William Peter Blatty and William Friedkin's The Exorcist.

Now, this movie on the other hand was run through a highly technical process called "tension extraction" to remove any trace of dramatic variance. It's just dull. All the characters are one dimensional.

The plot is threadbare if not simply cut and paste. No, truly.

Someone pitched it this way: "Think The Exorcist but involving a young woman being helped by an old priest with an accent and a young priest with doubts." And someone else said, "So.....The Exorcist." And the first person said, "No one remembers that. We'll throw in the mom from Everybody Loves Raymond. They'll remember her. And we'll call it The Ritual." And the second person says, "But there was a really good folk horror movie just a few years ago called that." And the first person says "Perfect. People will have forgotten what that was about and think this is the latest quick reboot and hand over their money like the dolts they are. Get me the oldest actor on the planet to play the one priest. Is the guy from Cruising still alive?"

And within the next four minutes a script was finished by a malfunctioning AI, Pacino's agent told the studio where to park the truckload of money, and the film wrapped production so fast Roger Corman's corpse tripped a California seismograph rolling so hard over in his grave.

This piece of garbage movie is everything that is wrong with everything in the world. There is no thought put into anything anymore. It is all about rushing out rehashed tripe to take cash from the masses.

It's not a natural state for human beings to view the world in constant shaking, zooming in and odd angles - this felt like I was watching the world from a boat on waves. It really lets everything else down, and what could have been a great horror, becomes a motion sickness misadventure.

The atmosphere is great, leading actors are of course a stellar choice and the plot is (although been done a thousand times), solid. If you can get past whatever on earth the director was thinking giving the cameraman orders to 'shake like you're filming this on drugs' - it's not too bad. Last sentence: IMBD can you stop this ridiculous minimum character count.

Here's a film with quite a dilemma. An exorcism story with little to no characterization, and no imagination. If the director was going for a more realistic approach, he failed.

This film performs almost every trick in the exorcism movie book and nothing more. It's quite a shame too. The direction is adept and offers some tension. The pacing is proper for this kind of storyline. The acting is pretty good. I've seen better, but I've also seen a lot worse. The setting is appropriately creepy and atmospheric.

The problem is it does little to tell us anything about it's characters and it strictly sticks with the exorcism. I felt like I learned nothing about this supposed "true story" throughout the runtime except how the rituals are performed. I believe that is where the critics and the audience are having a problem connecting with the film. It was just boring and uninspired.

Overall, I'd say it can wait until streaming. It won't be long before it gets there as nobody is rushing to the theaters to see this one. I was one of two people at my showing, and I completely understand why.

1.5 priests out of 5.

In a world where two or three exorcism movies are being released each year, you have to do something special to make your mark. Unfortunately, The Ritual is about as bland as you can get from an exorcism movie.

It's first issue is that it commits the cardinal sin of not being remotely scary or creepy. Partly this is because everything it is doing has been done to death, and has been done better in other films. Partly it is because it doesn't even seem to try too hard to cultivate a spooky atmosphere. The whole tone and look of the film is just dull.

The performances are OK, but nothing special. Al Pacino is wasted in a pretty formulaic role, and Dan Stevens does his best to put meat on the sparse bones of a beleaguered priest tasked with hosting the exorcism. It is a wonder how such a good cast was assembled for such a poor film.

Ultimately though, I do think this film falls apart with its story. It is just so formulaic and derivative of the exorcism genre. I knew every single story beat that was going to happen before it did. Nothing here is remotely new. I think they rested on their laurels due to the fact it was based on a real story, but that doesn't make it any better. The whole thing just lacked any real theatricality or spark.

Of all the exorcism films that I've seen in recent years, this is most definitely one of the least inspiring. One to avoid.