Out patrolling a California highway, police officer Edward Malus stops a station wagon to return a little girl's lost doll. Moments later, a runaway truck slams into the station wagon, igniting it into a fiery wreck with the mother and child trapped inside. Edwards fails to save them before the car explodes--and then spends months of his life choking down pills to get the image of their faces out of his head. But Edward is about to get a second chance. A desperate letter from his former fiancee, Willow, arrives at his home with no postmark. Willow came into his life and left just as unexpectedly years before. But now, her daughter Rowan has gone missing, and Edward is the only person she trusts to help relocate her. She asks him to come to her home on a private island--Summersisle--a place with its own traditions where people observe a forgotten way of life. Edward seizes the opportunity to make his life right again, and soon finds himself on a seaplane bound for the islands of the Pacific Northwest.

But nothing is what it seems on isolated Summersisle, where a culture, dominated by its matriarch Sister Summersisle, is bound together by arcane traditions and a pagan festival known as "the Day of Death and Rebirth." The secretive people of Summersisle only ridicule his investigation, insisting that a child named Rowan never existed there--or if she ever did was no longer alive. But what Edward doesn't know is that Willow's plea for help has invited more into his life than a chance for redemption. In unraveling Summersisle's closely held secrets, Edward is drawn into a web of ancient traditions and murderous deceit, and each step he takes closer to the lost child brings him one step closer to the unspeakable. And one step closer to The Wicker Man.

I have this really strange compulsion that I need to see an original film before I can see its remake. That’s why I waited nearly a month to see the remake of the 1974 cultish English film as I had never seen the original and I waited until I had. Now in most cases I like the original vastly more but in this case the vice versa was true, as I liked the remake much more. The original for me was this odd film that seemed best fitted for the 1970’s and a time following the whole hippie movement. With its odd sexual tension and very laid back feel the movie fit that time era very well. The remake on the other hand fit our time period much better with its more real approach and with it being based in America rather than Scotland. Each movie is different and while the original gave me quite a few what the f%$k moments, the remake on the other hand entranced me with its story even though I already knew what the climax of the film was going to be. That says a lot about a remake, the fact that it can still keep you interested even though you know how it’s going to end.

The remake undergoes a few drastic changes, from the locale of the film, to the villains of the film. The last is the most major of changes and the oddest. The original was about this group of people who decided to worship the old gods and be one with mother nature. The remake is about a group of feminist that want to empower the female. So the original has much more dynamics as it involves both genders while the new one subjugates the male race. This gives the film a very odd and surreal feel and is a vast change from the original. While I liked the feel of the new movie, as it seemed more suspenseful, this change in the plot of the film seemed silly to me at times and really unnecessary. Sometimes changes are good, the whole surreal and added suspense of the film was very good, sometimes the changes are bad, the feminist movement of the new film was downright silly at times but in the end I think the good changes outweighed the bad ones.

You have to respect Nicolas Cage as an actor as he is one of finest actors in all of Hollywood right now but at the same time you have to question what roles he takes and the Wicker Man is one of the roles that is very questionable. He never matches the intensity of the originals Edward Woodward nor does he ever really fit into the role that well. He is the odd man out in the film a lot of times which is ironic since he shares the screen mostly with females. On the other hand Ellen Burstyn had much bigger shoes to fill taking over for the iconic Christopher Lee and doing a much better job than Cage did in his role. She is the highpoint of much of the movie and makes the movie very enjoyable. They do stick to the ending which made me happy because it seemed like they might change it at times for a more modern PC ending. The movie is good, not great and is a very decent remake.

Grade: B