{"id":168123,"date":"2021-02-01T21:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T18:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/a-bonkers-genre-mashup-film\/"},"modified":"2021-02-01T21:00:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T18:00:16","slug":"a-bonkers-genre-mashup-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/a-bonkers-genre-mashup-film\/","title":{"rendered":"#A Bonkers Genre Mashup \u2013 \/Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#A Bonkers Genre Mashup \u2013 \/Film<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

\"Prisoners<\/p>\n

Think back to your time in elementary school. Think about that one kid in your class who snorted Pixie Stix, constantly drank way too much soda, ran circles around everyone else at recess, and maybe even inspired some awe at his seemingly boundless amounts of energy. That kid\u2019s actions were always so far removed from the traditional behavior of you and your peers that he may as well have been an alien, dropped into your school as some sort of bizarre social<\/a> experiment.<\/p>\n

If that kid were a movie, he\u2019d be Prisoners of the Ghostland<\/strong><\/em>, filmmaker Sion Sono<\/strong>\u2018s unhinged new genre mashup which combines elements of classic westerns, samurai movies<\/a>, John Carpenter\u2019s\u00a0Escape From New York<\/em>, Stephen Chow\u2019s\u00a0Kung Fu Hustle<\/em>, George Miller\u2019s Mad Max<\/em>, and more. This spastic burst of cinematic energy is the type of film that gleefully embraces the knowledge that it will gain absolutely zero traction outside the midnight movie crowd. But while there are a couple of Nicolas Cage<\/strong> freakout scenes, the rest of\u00a0Prisoners of the Ghostland<\/em> may end up being a little too cryptic for casual genre fans looking to kick back and have a good time.
<\/span><\/p>\n

During a prologue, we see two bank robbers (Cage and Nick Cassavetes<\/strong>) try to pull off a job that goes wrong. Elsewhere, three women escape from the red light district of the heightened, neon-drenched Samurai Town \u2013 but one of them, Bernice (Sofia Boutella<\/strong>), soon wakes up in a run-down desert camp called the Ghostland. \u201cI\u2019m not a prisoner!\u201d she screams into the night, establishing one of the film\u2019s most consistent theme<\/a>s.
\nAfter the title card appears, the real set up begins. Years later, Cage\u2019s unnamed character, who had been jailed after the botched robbery, is dragged out of his cell and into the middle of Samurai Town\u2019s streets at the behest of The Governor (Bill Moseley<\/strong>), the town\u2019s most powerful man. Everyone there dresses like either a cowboy, a ronin, or a geisha, and with the entire town\u2019s guns trained on Cage, The Governor explains that his adopted granddaughter Bernice has gone missing, and he needs Cage to find her. He forces Cage to suit up in a black leather jumpsuit lined with bombs, which will detonate if he doesn\u2019t bring Bernice home \u2013 and in a playful plussing of this Escape From New York<\/em> setup, there\u2019s a bomb placed near each of Cage\u2019s testicles to prevent him from hooking up with her.<\/p>\n

With no choice in the matter, Cage heads out to a \u201cstretch of highway where evil reigns\u201d on a quest to find her, and the rest of the movie follows him through bizarre vignettes on his attempt to bring her home. The film, which was already heavily stylized, unleashes the floodgates and throws just about everything it can at our hero: a prophecy, samurai ghosts, people trapped inside mannequin plaster molds, a deranged cult-like city, a scavenger named Ratman operating on the fringes of society, and so many more moments that if I explained them here, this would sound like one of the most insane movies ever made. Hell, maybe it is.<\/p>\n

Sono feels like he\u2019s steeped in deep knowledge of all of the genres he\u2019s paying homage to here, and there are several moments where he leans into the fun of operating in this operatic, heightened type of cinema. Some of the samurai deaths during the climactic battle feature bloody spurts that recall the blood-gushing final face-off in Kurosawa\u2019s Sanjuro<\/em>; a bit of performative exposition about the nuclear waste crash seems like it could have been pulled straight out of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome<\/em>; the synth score accentuated by acoustic guitar and Ennio Morricone-style whistles is a knowing blend of John Carpenter\u2019s beloved \u201980s filmography and classic westerns. It culminates with a massive street battle that features a couple instances of cool action choreography and swordplay, and the power dynamics shift as hope and purpose are restored to these communities that have been ruled with an iron fist.<\/p>\n

But amid all of the gonzo antics and ridiculous visuals (at one point, Cage dons a football helmet and is rocking a metal arm with a sword blade protruding from it), I\u2019ll admit I had a hard time tracking exactly all of this craziness is supposed to add up to. There\u2019s a subplot involving a prison bus crashing into a transport truck filled with toxic nuclear waste, and the condemnation of authority figures who refuse to help regular folks who live near the crash site because that would mean the authorities would have to acknowledge that the crash happened \u2013 and they refuse to take that responsibility. There\u2019s a sign in the background of a scene that reads \u201cMake This Country Great Again,\u201d so is all of this a commentary on the way the United States bungled the handling of the coronavirus pandemic? Is The Governor, who loves power and being surrounded by women, supposed to be a stand-in for Trump? There\u2019s another subplot about time, with citizens of Ghostland literally freezing time by holding the hand of their giant town clock in place with a long rope. The clock is linked to the nuclear subplot, making me wonder if it\u2019s some kind of doomsday commentary or a callback to the atomic bombs that America unleashed on Japan (where this film was shot). But the movie\u2019s unique setting gives it a weird sense of timelessness, so I honestly couldn\u2019t tell you what Sono is going for. It\u2019s the kind of movie that\u2019s vague enough where you can get several interpretations out of it, and I look forward to seeing if my colleagues were able to glean more clarity from the filmmaker\u2019s vision than I did.<\/p>\n

Cage feels right at home in a role like this, and even though he gets to do some pretty ludicrous things (at one point he threatens to karate chop someone and amusingly yells \u201cHi-fucking-ya!\u201d), those moments don\u2019t have nearly the same emotional rage and raw power that he delivered in Mandy<\/em> a couple of years ago, which leaves these flourishes feeling a little empty in comparison. Boutella, on the other hand, feels like she\u2019s barely hanging on during this ride, and she really only gets to show off the physicality for which she\u2019s known during the big action scene at the end.
\nA maniacal whirlwind of cinematic insanity, it feels equally likely that Prisoners of the Ghostland<\/em> could become a cult classic or disappear into the fog. Whether its overall inscrutability is a bug or a feature remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\/Film Rating: 5 out of 10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cool Posts From Around the Web:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n <\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#A Bonkers Genre Mashup \u2013 \/Film” Think back to your time in elementary school. Think about that one kid in your class who snorted Pixie Stix, constantly drank way too much soda, ran circles around everyone else at recess, and maybe even inspired some awe at his seemingly boundless amounts of energy. That kid\u2019s actions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/Prisoners-of-the-Ghostland-review.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1568,1513,9652,1570,7598,36984,87057,39330,31317],"class_list":["post-168123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-featured-stories-sidebar","tag-action-adventure","tag-fantasy","tag-features","tag-movie-reviews","tag-nicolas-cage","tag-prisoners-of-the-ghostland","tag-rlje-films","tag-sion-sono"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}