Movie Review: The Rite

Synopsis: Inspired by true events, the film follows seminary student Michael Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue), who is sent to study exorcism at the Vatican in spite of his own doubts about the controversial practice and even his own faith. Wearing his deep skepticism like armor, Michael challenges his superiors to look to psychiatry, rather than demons, in treating the possessed. Only when he's sent to apprentice with the unorthodox Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins)--a legendary priest who has performed thousands of exorcisms--does Michael's armor begin to fall. As he is drawn into a troubling case that seems to transcend even Father Lucas's skill, he begins to glimpse a phenomenon science can't explain or control...and an evil so violent and terrifying that it forces him to question everything he believes.

Ah, the dreaded "inspired by true events" tagline. Which, of course, means it's total fiction. But anyway, here we have yet another exorcism movie and as I've said before the first great exorcism movie, The Exorcist, set the bar so high I'm not sure why they even keep making these. And this one follows the same story really I've seen plenty of times, most recently in The Last Exorcism and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. We have a doubter, we have a old priest and we have some wacky goings on from that mean old devil.

Something needs to set one of these apart from the others and at least this film does have that in the form of Anthony Hopkins. I think he's fantastic in this movie and saves it from being "just another exorcism movie". Oh it's still not great by any means, but it's good and very engaging at least with a fantastic performance by Perkins. There are only a few good chills, not enough, and the pace does get sort of slow at times but it's pretty watchable.

I thought it was going to go for sort of a question of faith type stance, which might have been cool, but it really ended up being a Hollywood demon possession flick, which sort of stretches the credibility of the whole "based on a true story" bit. I've seen the so-called "real possesion" videos on YouTube and I'll be damned if any actually have supernatural occurences going on. Demons must be scared of cameras in real life.

Anyway, a bit slow and cliche ridden but watch it for Anthony Perkins and a few chills.

6/10