Exorcist: The Beginning

A terrifying excursion into boredom! This horrifyingly dull film wastes the talents of Stellan Skarsgaard as a younger version of the character Max Von Sydow played in the original Exorcist. Which is strange, because Skarsgaard is about nine years older than Von Sydow was when he played the part. And yet, he’s supposed to be 20 years younger. That kind of logic is at work throughout the film, which is never even vaguely engaging. There’s some demons and some exorcisms and some people vomiting stuff up and getting possessed by the forces of evil and stuff, but that’s no different than what we saw at the Republican National Convention, and we can watch that for free on television. Strangely, Warner Bros made this film twice, scrapping the first version because it wasn’t scary enough. It’s hard to imagine what’s less scary than this CGI-heavy snore fest. I can only imagine that the first try must have just been 90 minutes of fluffy kittens playing with yarn.