Main cast: Russell Crowe (Father Gabriele Amorth), Daniel Zovatto (Father Esquibel), Alex Essoe (Julia Vasquez), Laurel Marsden (Amy Vasquez), Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, (Henry Vasquez), Cornell John (Bishop Lumumba), Bianca Bardoe (Rosaria), and Franco Nero (The Pope)
Director: Julius Avery

I suppose Russell Crowe is at the stage of his career where he’d take any role that comes his way for the paycheck.

That will explain how he seems more lively in The Pope’s Exorcist than his last few roles—he probably really wants the money—but as usual his attempts at accent can be a cringe generator.

He plays the Italian exorcist guru Father Gabriele Amorth, and this movie is supposedly based on one of the fellow’s autobiographical books. I haven’t read them, because the late Father Amorth seemed like any standard old fusspot that came out from the church and I’m sure there is better horror fiction out there.

My opinion isn’t going to change after seeing this movie, despite Mr Crowe’s best efforts, as… let’s just say that even if this had been based on an autobiographical, real life exorcism, the movie is made entirely redundant by The Exorcist—the 1973 original, not the sequels or, shudder, the recent whatever-the-hell-that-is—as that one is far more scary and likely to put the fear of Pazazu in me.

This one sees Amorth, a cynical exorcist that believes that many of the exorcism cases he’d come across are actually just people in need of a psychiatrist, pairing up with the less experienced sidekick archetype Father Esquibel to take on the possessed boy Henry Vasquez.

It turns out that the Vasquez family has moved into a house that has many, many dark secrets linked to the demonic possession, and ooh, along the way he and Squidward learn that the Church may not be so pour and innocent after all. Then again, these two are forced to confess their sins to make sure the demon can’t use these secret sins against them, so we learn that Amorth is guilty for the death of a woman and Squidward stuck his crucifix where it really shouldn’t be stuck into, so yeah, so much for the Church being pure and holy.

Indeed, I sometimes find myself wondering whether the demon is just trying to expose the Church for what an impious, political, and hypocritical institution it is. By the end, though, the movie reverts back to the whole the Church is awesome thing again, as sequels are on the way.

This one isn’t scary and so much of it feels like a slower, draggier The Exorcist, although by the late third or so, the movie takes a detour and becomes more like one of the more cartoon-y sequels instead. So much of it feels played out and unimaginative, to the point that the characters are just stereotypes stapled clumsily into the movie, which is itself composed of what seems like scenes patterned after every other horror movie that has priests and some forces of Hell.

Also, unless I am greatly mistaken, the demon behind the possession is the horny one, so I’m not sure why he’s going through a bargain bin version of Pazuzu’s routine instead of, I don’t know, trying to screw the house pet or something.

Anyway, this one feels like a dull, goofball version of an exorcism movie that seems conflicted as to whether it should be a horror film or a CGI-heavy cartoon. I do want to like this one, as the idea of a franchise with a kick-ass exorcist is just too cool for words, but sadly, it just isn’t meant to be.