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I've watched just snippets of the movie on Youtube but that was more than enough to turn me off from watching it in its entirety. The plot deviates so much from the original Homeric saga to become a farce of a film. Odysseus's "ship" is just a raft, with 5 or 6 guys on it. The scenes with the suitors feasting in what passes for the royal palace look like they were shot in the lobby of some fancy hotel. Bad acting - more wooden than the Trojan horse, terrible special effects (to think we're in the technology age, at that), dodgy dialogue, need I go on ..... .do yourself a favor and don't watch.

drone: 1. A male bee, especially a honeybee, that is characteristically stingless, performs no work, and produces no honey. Its only function is to mate with the queen bee 2.To make a continuous low dull humming sound 3.To pass or act in a monotonous way Any or all of the above definitions are apt for this utter farce of a remake of the 1973 cult classic. As a comedy it does the job very well especially in the penultimate scenes where Nicolas Cage kicks a couple of women who get in his way and dons a bear suit to join a parade of paganistic and predominantly female islanders in an attempt to rescue his daughter from being a human sacrifice to the nature gods. Unfortunately for him, things are not what they seem and he realizes too late that he was the intended victim all along.

The misogynistic outlook of director LaButte is clearly evident in portraying the women of Summersisle island as a domineering self-contained self-righteous heartless lot who have absolute control over the few men that do inhabit the island, enslaving them and rendering them speechless by removing their tongues. Far cry from the 1973 original where both genders are treated as equals and respected in whatever occupations they practice.

The spiritual overtones of the original film are non-existent in this remake. Sergeant Howie in the 1973 version could come across as having died a martyr to his (Christian) faith and even Lord Summerisle commends him for this before having the former consigned to be a living sacrifice to propitiate the nature gods. But in the remake, Cage as Edward Malus is simply another sacrificial lamb along with the other creatures confined within the wicker man. There's no chanting of ancient hymns, dancing around maypoles nor feasible explanations for performing certain rituals as in the previous version. Which might pose a problem for those who haven't watched nor are aware of the 1973 original.

And there's the opening scene with Edward Malus witnessing the car accident involving a mother-daughter pair and subsequent flashbacks that he experiences afterwards which affect him so much he's had to take medication. The significance of this to the main storyline is poorly if ever explained and eventually forgotten as the plot thickens.Why the police force would allow one of its members who is clearly psychologically and emotionally disturbed to go on a missing person case is beyond me.

And the statement he utters when he's in the wicker man and his daughter rushes up with a burning torch "Put it down HONEY" is just so appropriate. Or poor choice of words depending on one's viewpoint.

Either of the aforementioned titles would have been more appropriate than just The Lone Ranger. Armie Hammer as the titular character does little more than whinge and complain and question about every sticky situation he gets himself into, in conjunction with Tonto (the "Deranger"), who true to his name, is more loco than an ancient Nordic berserker in his quest to avenge the massacre of his tribe by hunting down the men responsible. In truth, Tonto is the real protagonist, as he does most of the fighting and killing and talking, leaving the real LR little more than a bumbling sidekick. And what's with the dead crow on his head - shouldn't he be affiliated with the Crow tribe in that case instead of Comanche? - at any rate, as far as I can recall from reading countless Western novels, the native tribes usually adorned themselves with the feathers and not the entire bird. I'd like to know what today's Comanche think of about Johnny Depp's portrayal. Wouldn't be surprised if they decided to unite and go on the warpath.

Clearly the target audience are the gen-Yers and Z-ers, many of whom will have never heard of nor seen the original TV serial starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels. But even the, why distort the original storyline and throw in incongruous special effects that will be disproven by Mythbusters - like a horse leaping from a rooftop to a train over a ten foot distance, and then dropping perfectly straight into a train carriage just before it goes through a tunnel. Not to mention numerous anachronisms in time and history - Sears Roebuck wasn't formed till the early 20th century? And what's with the scorpion-munching rabid rabbits? That said I did have a good laugh throughout the film only because I found 250 million ways to turn a classic Western icon into a comedic travesty.

Who was that masked man? Who cares?!