First half of the movie: 6.5/10
Second half - 2/10
Okay, first things first - visually it's not bad, if you ignore the abuse of the color correction in some places, there's some interesting things about camera work and such, but all of it falls flat after the first hour of the movie, because everything else takes a nosedive into the pool of excrement.
All the build-up and suspense in the first hour of the movie is completely gone in the second half, when the "action" comes in.
When members of the cult are first introduced, you can feel that they are a threat. The first appearance of these cenobite-like bikers is good - you don't know anything about them, their identity is completely mystified and they feel like something inhumane, demonic.
Guess what? Nope, they are just a bunch of drug-addicted douchebags, and they are killed by main character in a very lame manner in about 15 minutes of screentime.
Same goes for all other cult members - turns out there's just small bunch of them, and, by some lucky coincidence, they are completely separated from each other, so they can be easily killed by Nicholas Cage in the most lazy and uninspiring ways.
Have i told you that action scenes are bad? Oh boy, they are. There's two ways in which main character kills someone - it's either some quick cheap death made possible by pure luck and stupidity of the victim, or badly choreographed cringe-inducing attempt at making a fight scene.
Here's some example: there's a very long camera shot of the guy polishing his car, there's nobody around and he's completely unaware. Suddenly, it cuts to a looped video of the rotating axe at pitch black background. Next shot just shows the guy silhouette falling with the axe in his head and that's it - it looks like something straight out of Troma movie.
Given that story is non-existent, and it's only there to accompany the visuals, you at least expect the "revenge" part to be satisfying and over the top, especially if you watched the trailer. But unfortunately it turns out to be a boring slog, with an anticlimactic ending and feeling of dissatisfaction.
Okay, first things first - visually it's not bad, if you ignore the abuse of the color correction in some places, there's some interesting things about camera work and such, but all of it falls flat after the first hour of the movie, because everything else takes a nosedive into the pool of excrement.
All the build-up and suspense in the first hour of the movie is completely gone in the second half, when the "action" comes in.
When members of the cult are first introduced, you can feel that they are a threat. The first appearance of these cenobite-like bikers is good - you don't know anything about them, their identity is completely mystified and they feel like something inhumane, demonic.
Guess what? Nope, they are just a bunch of drug-addicted douchebags, and they are killed by main character in a very lame manner in about 15 minutes of screentime.
Same goes for all other cult members - turns out there's just small bunch of them, and, by some lucky coincidence, they are completely separated from each other, so they can be easily killed by Nicholas Cage in the most lazy and uninspiring ways.
Have i told you that action scenes are bad? Oh boy, they are. There's two ways in which main character kills someone - it's either some quick cheap death made possible by pure luck and stupidity of the victim, or badly choreographed cringe-inducing attempt at making a fight scene.
Here's some example: there's a very long camera shot of the guy polishing his car, there's nobody around and he's completely unaware. Suddenly, it cuts to a looped video of the rotating axe at pitch black background. Next shot just shows the guy silhouette falling with the axe in his head and that's it - it looks like something straight out of Troma movie.
Given that story is non-existent, and it's only there to accompany the visuals, you at least expect the "revenge" part to be satisfying and over the top, especially if you watched the trailer. But unfortunately it turns out to be a boring slog, with an anticlimactic ending and feeling of dissatisfaction.