Arcadian (film): It's decent, but that's what we expect of Nick Cage

Nicholas Cage has dialed it down a bit as of late and isn't releasing 20 movies a year anymore. Obviously I am exaggerating about how many movies he made but let's be honest here: Nick seems to be the kind of person that never met a script he didn't like.

Seeing him in fewer movies these days actually encourages me to see what he does decide to do a bit more and that is why I even bothered with this one. When you read the synopsis it sounds like it is going to be exactly the same as a ton of other movies and in all honesty, this movie is precisely that.

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Our film begins with a rather intense running scene with Nicholas Cage, who we will later find out is named Paul (it takes a while to get to that) running in an urban environment through what we cannot see, but appears to be some sort of warscape that has destroyed a lot of what is going on around us. Towards the end of it we can see some sort of massive battle taking place around the corner and this is what Paul is trying to get away from with what ever is on his back.

I don't like that this was done with "shakey cam" a la The Hurt Locker style, but if that is something that gives you motion sickness you should bail out now because that is how nearly the entire film is made. I don't understand this tactic and it annoys me because it is unnecessary, but that is what director Ben Brewer was going for and we kind of have to take it as it comes.

When we get to the end of this running scene we see that Paul has been running to get supplies and re-unite with his infant babies. Then they do something I always like to see in films because it makes me laugh when it says "FIFTEEN YEARS LATER" on screen and we are brought to what the film is really about.

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I found it a bit annoying that the opening sequence existed at all at first but in retrospect this is actually a perfect way of letting us know that something that we don't have to have spelled out for us happened on earth that once again resulted in the shutdown of society without having a narrator spell it out for us and without putting a bunch of words on the screen. Showing us that 15 years have passed are the only words that appear on the screen.

The evil or danger that is still present in the world isn't told to us specifically but instead we are gradually introduced to it over time. We are made to know that people need to be back home by night because that is expressly stated. We don't know what they are hiding from but we do know that Paul's idiot teenage sons aren't taking the threat seriously when one of his son's arrives home late and Dad shouts "why are you late" and his son responds "I lost track of time" which becomes much more infuriating than just a teenager not giving a damn about adult things a bit later on when they put the house into lockdown and it gets assaulted by some unknown force on the exterior.

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I don't want to spoil what the "evil" is that they are protecting themselves from in their barricaded house because you'll find out the same way that I did and I kind of appreciate the way that the film does this gradually, without spelling it out for us. That part of the way the film is done is in my mind, done very well. We are in fact thrust straight into the action but we don't specifically see what the danger is until much later on. I was reminded of the movie *Signs" where we are made aware really early on that it was aliens that we were dealing with, but we only got a taste here and there until the very end. In that regard, this film is done in a very similar manner. We get to see pieces of the evil here and there but not the whole picture.

Should I watch it?

I'm happy to see that the above trailer doesn't give too much away about the "evil" either. You only get some very brief snippets of what we are dealing with here.

Altogether this movie, I think, is better than the rating that it currently has of around 5.5/10 on most review sites. Like I said in the title, it is decent, but I think it is more like a 7/10 decent. It isn't perfect by any means but it also isn't a CGI slugfest. I like how we are gradually introduced to the "bad guys" rather than have the shoved down out throats right from the start.

There are quite a few things in this film that are kind of interesting to see happen such as sibling rivalry, teenage love interests overpowering sensibility, and also a coming of age story in mixed in there along with some tense action. The movie isn't perfect by a long shot but honestly, I think it was pretty visionary of the screenplay writer to introduce us slowly to the danger in the story but all the while not making it drag on to the point of being boring. There are some things I think they could have done better and other people watching this will likely agree. Overall I think it is worth seeing and you could do much worse than putting this one one night. You don't have to enjoy horror films to enjoy this, but if you are the type of person that is easily frightened, you may want to steer clear of this one because it does have, as the poster says, some "nightmare fuel" in there.

_{currently you can legally watch Arcadian at theaters and it can be purchased from nearly every online service in existence. It is not yet available for streaming for free with any of the major subscriptions}