ARCADIAN (2024)

Studio:   RLJE Films/Shudder
Director: Benjamin Brewer
Writer:   Mike Nilon
Producer: Braxton Pope, Nicolas Cage, Mike Nilon, Arianne Fraser, Delphine Perrier, David M. Wulf
Stars:    Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins, Sadie Soverall

Review Score:

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Summary:

In a post-apocalyptic setting overrun by deadly creatures that thrive in darkness, fraternal twin brothers must reconcile their differences to save their father's life.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

15 years after an unknown apocalyptic event devastates the world with pollution while unleashing deadly creatures that are sensitive to light, single father Paul continues to survive in a remote farmhouse with his teenage, fraternal twin sons Joseph and Thomas, who have a fractured relationship with one another due to their disparate personalities. Despite their father's instructions to stay together during a supply run one day, Joseph and Thomas agree to go their separate ways and rendezvous before sunset to return home together.

While Joseph salvages parts for the mechanical inventions he builds, Thomas visits a nearby farm and survivalist camp run by Mr. and Mrs. Rose. Although Thomas regularly works odd jobs for the couple, he also enjoys time spent with their daughter Charlotte, with whom he fosters a budding romance.

On his way back to meet his brother before nightfall, Thomas accidentally slips into an underground cave and is knocked unconscious. When Joseph returns home without him, Paul sets out alone to search for Thomas in the dangerous darkness.

Paul finds his son, but with creatures stalking around them, he and Thomas decide to wait out the night in the cave. However, creatures trigger a cave-in that causes Paul to blow up his arm and fall unconscious. Meanwhile, back at the house, Joseph uses himself as bait to capture one of the creatures.

In the morning, Joseph ventures back out into the forest and finds Thomas with their father's unconscious body. The two brothers rush Paul back home.

A struggle between the brothers causes the captured creature to escape, so Thomas kills it. Joseph expresses disappointment because he planned on studying the creature.

Joseph and Thomas agree to take their dying father to the Roses for help. Unfortunately, Mrs. Rose refuses to supply assistance by claiming their farm cannot spare any medicine. However, Mrs. Rose does allow Thomas to stay with them as another farmhand while Joseph returns home with Paul. Following a physical fight between the brothers, Joseph leaves Thomas with Charlotte.

Thomas convinces Charlotte to give him medicine so he can sneak it back home to Paul. However, a farmhand named Hobson catches Thomas fleeing and takes him captive at gunpoint.

Hobson and other farmhands prepare to use Thomas as bait for the creatures, but they are unexpectedly attacked by monsters coming from underground. The creatures overrun the farmhouse and also kill Charlotte's parents. With help from Charlotte, Thomas and Charlotte are the only two people to survive the attack as the Rose farm erupts in flames.

Thomas and Charlotte return to Joseph. The two brothers reconcile their estranged relationship.

Recognizing that the creatures will now be mounting an attack from under the floors, Joseph, Thomas, and Charlotte fortify the house, pour gasoline, and set booby traps. When the creatures attack, Paul recovers enough to sacrifice himself so that the three teens survive the fiery standoff.

In daylight, Joseph, Thomas, and Charlotte mourn their fallen parents by burying them together. The trio then sets off in search of a new farm where they can take shelter.

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Review:

Now that he's past the peak of more down-to-earth parts in prestige films that attract the eyes of award show voters, Nicolas Cage has hit the second slope in his eclectic career where the offbeat persona he's built both onscreen and off best suits him for weirdo roles in weirdo movies. At this point, fans who lap up the crazy carnage left in the wake of his scenery-swallowing performances would probably prefer to see Cage continue creating kooks like an outrageously over-the-top Dracula or a mute janitor battling demonic robots than a dramatically depressed alcoholic ever again.

That's why it's strange that producers offered, and Cage accepted, the plainly pedestrian part he plays in "Arcadian." In the movie, Cage features (he may be top-billed, but it'd be misleading to say he "stars" since he has less screentime than the names that appear after his) as Paul, an ordinary single father struggling to survive with his teenage sons Joseph and Thomas in a post-apocalyptic landscape whose budget limits it to looking like a dairy farm you'd find on any road trip in just about any country. Paul's meager minutes and white bread characterization don't afford Cage any opportunities to do anything extraordinary, or to do anything anyone with a SAG card couldn't do just as sufficiently, making it a truly baffling choice to cast Cage for any reason other than some fleeting name recognition.

In "Arcadian's" world, it's been 15 years since an undisclosed and apparently unknown event caused chaos by releasing deadly creatures that come out at night. Various characters float various theories regarding what happened. Joseph wonders if pollution made monsters to cleanse the world by making humans extinct. Thomas half-seriously speculates that a purple haze turned people into feral wolves. Thomas's girlfriend, um, Charlotte (never a good sign when I have to look up a forgotten character name even though the TV screen is still warm), thinks insects spread an infection and machines took over.

This is the film telling the audience that the background isn't important, only the backdrop matters. And against that backdrop, we get a "day in the life" of post-doomsday activities that illustrate the most mundane everyday events imaginable.

Paul mostly reminds his boys not to bicker. When he's not tinkering with his mechanical inventions, Joseph passes the time replaying historic chess matches by himself. Thomas puts in work at the ranch run by Charlotte's parents. That's where we see sheep in the fields, water pumped into buckets, and other yawn-worthy clips of B-roll that make viewers wonder if they're still watching a supposed thriller, or if they've somehow stumbled upon a Travel Channel show about countryside living.

This is also roughly the time when Cage's character goes on ice for most of the movie's remaining duration, and viewers realize the hook of Nic Cage fighting terrifying beasts in a Walking Dead wasteland was merely a lure to pin people into a routine indie that's really a stripped-down drama about two brothers reconciling their differences. Even when they face dire circumstances, such as having to rush their gravely wounded father to safety, the melancholy piano accompaniment sounds like something out of an arthouse romance rather than music meant to heighten the tension of a suspenseful situation.

By the time "Arcadian" arrives at its frantic finale, there's been too little intrigue and too much focus on familial interactions to invest any excitement in the animalistic action or firefights. Neither scary enough to qualify as a full fight film, nor original enough to engage with anything more than passive attention, "Arcadian" is a filler movie few people are likely to remember in 10 years. Maybe even in 10 minutes.

Review Score: 50

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