I think we’re at the point in movie history where we get one great Nicholas Cage movie a year out of what I assume are 3,000 films. Sadly, Cage already made his great film earlier this year, and even more sadly, Cage was pretty mellow in that flick. That means the hyper unhinged Nic Cage movie is meant for some mediocre streaming release. I had high hopes for Prisoners of Ghostland, but this movie is all style and negligible substance. Oh well, I’ll just have to wait for Mandy 2 hopefully.
After a strange botched bank robbery from the Hero (Cage) and his buddy Psycho (Nick Cassavetes), we’re taken to Samurai Land. In Japan, something terrible happened, and humanity is in little camps of people. Hero, imprisoned for his botched robbery, is released by The Governor (Bill Moseley) and his right hand man Yasujiro (Tak Sakaguchi). The Governor demands Hero to find and return one of his sex slaves, Bernice (Sofia Boutella), who has escaped the town and entered the “ghostland,” a waste area from the apocalypse fallout. Hero has no choice and agrees: the Governor made Hero put on an exploding suit that will kill him in 3 days if he doesn’t return with Bernice.
Sion Sono must have been a fan of George Miller. Prisoners of the Ghostland is his version of Beyond Thunderdome. Samurai Land and the Ghostland give us 2 fascinating looks at how humans group together when society was destroyed. Using societies we understand, Sono lets his mind go wild with his world building. Samurai Land almost looks like a theme park on the surface, but when you go deeper you see the colors mask a tough existence for anyone not at the top. The Ghostland is a gonzo theocracy, with all sorts of strange new customs and inhabitants finding their footing in this new reality. Both places use pieces of modern technology inside of a society that resembles something more like ancient civilizations. New religions and “biblical” stories abound, using clocktowers and referencing buses and car crashes. Mannequins factor into religious customs. “Making it rain” carries newer, horrifying meanings in Samurai Land. Sono’s mixing of old and new makes Prisoners of the Ghostland more fun just looking around and finding some new interesting part of this post apocalyptic civilization.
Those fascinating worlds are a good thing, because Prisoners of the Ghostland is pretty boring when people start talking. The movie feels like a comedian who’s great at joke setups but sucks with their punch lines. Cage was so ready too: the few times they ask him to go for it, he gives us some insane look or some over the top monologue (the best scene in the movie is when he does both, while uttering one of the great Nic Cage lines I won’t spoil). The rest of the cast and the writing just can’t meet Cage on his level for the most part, letting costumes, sets and over the top violence do the talking. Other than the occasional moments in the Ghostland, the movie spends a lot of time rehasing the same bank robbery scene over and over again, and mistakes these perspective switches to be something important for everyone. As insane as the setup and some of the sequences are, I almost drifted to sleep a couple times when we’re left with dribble for dialogue.
So Prisoners of Ghostland is a swing and a miss. That’s ok, it’s bound to be a part of the late night cult film midnight screening circuit for years to come. I think that circuit is now Cage has been trying to rebuild his fortune. I look forward to his continued additions to the genre, including at some point a desperate remake of The Room with Tommy Wiseau, I can only assume.