L'Exorciste du Vatican

Russell Crowe plays the real life Pope's exorcist, Gabriele Amorth. Father Amorth passed away in 2006 and its probably a good thing. While this movie is spooky and entertaining, its a big, exaggerated, and I assume highly fictionalized, version of a time in Father Amorth's life.

The Pope (Franco Nero) assigns Father Amorth to look into a potential demonic possession of a young boy in Spain. The boy, Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), his mother Julia (Alex Essoe) and his sister Amy (Laurel Marsden) are Americans who move to Spain after the death of Henry's father in a car accident. They are living in an old Spanish abbey that is the only think Julia's husband left them when he died in a car accident the year before. A local priest, Father Esquible (Daniel Zovatto) is out of his element, but is enlisted by Amorth to assist in the exorcism.

The possession tropes are all here. Contortions, scary voices, lights going on and off, crosses turning upside down, people getting thrown around, possessed people spewing fluids and cursing, climbing walls and crawling around like spiders. There is a mystery about the origin of the abbey dealing with the church's role in the Inquisition.

There is some gratuitous nudity that just felt out of place in this movie. I mean, I like naked breasts as much as the next guy, but it just felt a bit uneccessary.

Crowe does a really good job as Father Amorth. He has the right balance of faith, weariness and conviction for someone who faces evil of all kinds. Zovatto's performance as Father Esquibel, to me, was the highlight of the film. He keeps everything grounded, despite the bizarre happenings. All three of the actors playing the family members are cookie-cutter performances and don't really add or subtract from the proceedings. There are some genuine chills in this move and a few scary moments. I enjoyed it and its crisp runtime kept it from getting boring. Still, I was hoping for a bit more story and less stunt work. I mean how many times do we need to see someone get thrown across a room into a mirrored wall and get right back up? One character, while wrestling with a possessed child, gets their head smashed through a ceramic sink with no effect. I might have tapped out and sought some aspirin.

Enjoy it for what it is. Then go watch the Exorcist again.

Oh dear. I'm not sure if the makers of this movie were going for comedy horror or something else but it didn't really work. It was basically a film of silly voices. There wasn't enough tension to hold my engagement or enough story to keep me interested.

Some of the effects were good but nothing I haven't seen before. Russell Crowe was enjoyable to watch but it was difficult to take his character seriously and I'm not sure as a viewer I was supposed to. It was all just a bit too silly for my taste. I didn't believe the setting, it was too fantastical and the family characters were more like caricatures. It sort of hinted at a story for them but that didn't really go anywhere. So, superfluous and silly but not awful.

Critics said that Russell Crowe's performance as an Italian was dismal . I strongly disagree . He captured the essence of an Italian man . His accent was excellent I liked the way he delivered his lines and the way he showed his sense of humour . He was fantastic !

The other actors were great too ! . The Set was brilliant

This film could have been spectacular .

However it was marred by the boy. The little boy over acted his role . It looked ridiculous and laughable . It is not the child's fault . It was the casting director's fault and the film directors fault . The little boy had the 'stage school presence' about him . These kids who go to stage schools over emphasise everything as they are taught to . They are trained for roles in the Theatre where everything is over dramatised . So when these kids appear in films , it doesn't work . UNLESS the film director can obliterate that stage school training and give these kids a fresh approach and train them in a totally different way so they can act well in films .

Also the voice the boy had as a demon was not synched properly ! It looked pathetic! . He looked like he was playing a joke on the Priests and would burst into a fit of giggles at any time . How could anyone involved in the film think that sounded scary and authentic! It made the film into a comedy horror ! I was laughing .

If the Casting Director had chosen the right boy to play the part the film would have been fantastic . It is still a good movie and worth watching The twist at the End is great and unexpected . Loved that! .

Some people in this review section said it's been done before . Well it's very hard to get new concept in horror films. I don't care if it was done before as long as it's done well !

This is a decent movie. Entertaining and basically a new adaptation of the old Exorcist movie from 1973. While based on a real character the story is completely made up but at least entertaining. If you like horror type movies this may be ideal for you. Any while it is not a great movie, it is heads and shoulders above much of the awful PC garbage that Hollywood produces these days. Russell Crowe is quite good as Father Gabriel Amorth as is Franco Nero who plays the Pope in this movie. While I can live without some of the silliness like a possessed person crawling around like a spider, the movie is still entertaining, which is the reason we watch movies in the first place.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed The Pope's Exorcist. After initially seeing the trailers, I wrote this movie off as a standard possession film that I have seen time and time again, and while most of that is still true, there is something about this film that made it a joy to watch.

The film does not attempt to do anything particularly new or groundbreaking in the genre, but everything it has is handled with care and precision. The direction is fantastic, with a very quick pace that makes each scene have a sense of urgency as our characters attempt to perform the exorcism. There is particularly deep lore that is established within the church structure, with different factions and politics at play that add a slightly different dimension rather than just your run-of-the-mill "insert random priest here."

My favorite aspect of the film is the acting. I think all of the adult characters do a tremendous job here. Russell Crowe kills it in every scene he is in and definitely gives an entirely different take on the exorcist character. Where most are intensely serious and melodramatic, Crowe adds a bit of whimsicalness and youth to the character that creates a calming presence to every intense scene. His rapport with Daniel Zovatto is excellent. The two really play off each other well and carried the film in many ways. Alex Essoe was great, although underutilized. The two children were okay. The boy gave a very stereotypical portrayal of a possessed child, and the daughter was flat in many ways.

My only complaint about the entire film is its lack of originality and the story. Every single beat is something that we have seen before; there were no new or fresh ideas that were interjected into the story. The tension was fine, but nothing was particularly scary. Overall, if not for the film's fantastic director and cast, it would have been a bomb.

Score: 63% 👍 Verdict: Decent.