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The acclaimed actor is likely the optimal pick for a daring horror film about Jesus Christ, but not for the causes some audiences could guess. Actually, Cage doesn't even play the central religious figure in the new film: his role is credited only as The Carpenter. The actor is framed as the Joseph within this story, attempting to keep his religious convictions as his son (played by Noah Jupe), his now-teenage adopted son, begins to display supernatural abilities. Why it's hard to envision another major actor in this role is that while the figure grows weighed down with multiple challenges, the actor seems nearly emotionally convinced that this murky, somber little movie is worth his time.

The Actor's Recent Film Selections

Cage has using those years more selectively lately. He still stars in more movies than most average viewers could possibly view — as an illustration, were you informed that the actor has filmed three separate cowboy movies over the last few years? — however he also includes esteemed independent films for example Dream Scenario, another notable movie, and a further title. This new film appears to be a similar project, in that it’s genre-adjacent, likely to stir debate, and handles a campy-sounding premise with gravity.

The Film's Plot and Direction

Sadly, writer-director Lotfy Nathan does not reward the audience's focus. The film opens in a engagingly rootless place, marketed as inspired by an unknown scripture regarding the early years of Jesus. Cage's character, The Mother, and their child move constantly, fearful of faith-based hostility or doubt regarding The Boy’s mysterious gifts. “Calamity follows us,” The Carpenter gloomily remarks. That continues when sinister entities attack the family at their new home, getting a jump-start on that familiar Biblical temptation for The Boy.

Occasionally, the film resembles an Exorcist-style possession movie, but none of the central roles are explicitly taken over. Rather, they grow more and more distant from one another, as these forces infect a resident female (Isla Johnston, listed as “The Stranger”) that The Boy forms a relationship with, and gives each character troubling visions of a dark tomorrow. Cage's role notably struggles with his place within the plot, sometimes scolding the son he doesn't completely grasp.

Controversy and Care

The content is apt to stir disagreement, and Nathan treats it with a lot of delicacy — overly, possibly. The idea of a adolescent dealing with his eventual sacrifice and tempted by dark influences is indeed frightening, but the filmmaker might be hesitant regarding appearing sensational and anxious to indicate his aims, therefore he regularly withdraws to darkly ominous filming. The roles brood incessantly — the singer-actress, who showed real promise in a recent film update, interestingly — yields her performance to her Mother Mary cloak, sometimes broken up by several gnarly horror imagery.

Cage's Portrayal and Film's Shortcomings

At the same time, the actor dabbles in just the sort of exaggerated performance that his more snickering appreciators may desire. There is a moment (shown) in previews in which Cage flips out and yells “I’ve lost my faith!” When this sort of theatrical release is included in your biblical thriller, possibly a more openly absurd method would be more effective of Cage’s willingness to be extreme when necessary. Instead, the film echoes the poorer low-budget films Cage made through much of the 2010s — apart from the B-movies so much as the dramas and supernatural thrillers that always sound promising, and usually have some select Cage moments, but finally come across like, well, cheap home video fare.

Frankly, a number of those, although simpler, were more watchable as a whole. At this point I need to violate my own dogma, not faith-based but career-related: Years back, a respected mentor urged me to banish descriptive terms like “monotonous” or “lifeless” from my film-criticism vocabulary. These words convey little other than a personal and broadly stated impatience, disengaging from the job of vibrantly communicating the mental and feeling of seeing an individual production. It's challenging to convey tedium without seeming uninteresting yourself. It’s no more expressive as calling a movie “engaging.” “Explain further,” that is.

However, I admit, I felt uninterested throughout The Carpenter’s Son. In its defense, it is a devotional type of dullness, not because The Carpenter’s Son is moralizing, but because it demands a kind of dutiful submission to watch it. At some point soon after starting, the film enters a monotonous pattern of simmering distress, and never really