THE RITE - Movie Review

Ahhh Exorcism films. The genre of horror that both intrigues and annoys me. It's intriguing because it's managed to stay popular for all these decades, it's annoying because it's managed to stay popular all these decades. Since The Exorcist, there have been many worthy attempts at remaining, recreating, reconstructing and reinventing what fictional exorcisms are like in detail. Many films since have successfully taken new spins and frightening concepts and applied them to the phenomena of demonic possession and exorcism. Unfortunately The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins and directed by Mikael Hafstrom, fails to really do anything new or bring anything interesting to the table.

The story is based on true events. It follows a priest in training, Michael (played by Colin O'Donoghue), who among many others, is called to Vatican City to aid in a fight against a sudden outbreak of "demonic possessions". He is trained in how to handle extreme exorcisms. Along the way, he is sent to a veteran exorcist, Father Trevant (Hopkins). He is trained by the unorthodox priest, until suddenly one day the priest is possessed by a demon, and Michael is forced to both exorcise him and come to terms with the demons in his own past.

The reason I wasn't really impressed by this movie is probably because it's been done about a million times. There's no new concepts, no new ideas or theories on exorcisms, no in depth look at the Vatican. There's really nothing interesting. Even the most grotesque and "chilling" scenes seem to take you right to the brink of being scary, and then just stop dead in their tracks. As per usual, Anthony Hopkins is outstanding, but his performance is dwindled by the lead actor, who is essentially a no namer. The Rite is a mundane look at a genre long overworked, and brings nothing even remotely scary or interesting to the viewer.

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