This is a really weird film. The main premise is understandable, but the rest of what happens in this movie makes literally no sense. I watched this for Nick Cage, and of course Cage does a good job acting his part, but everyone else not so much. 5/10.
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scottmannen114 September 2021
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damianphelps25 December 2021This movie would be an abomination without Cage but then it doesn't really work with him either. Its a little like the director had too many toys to play with and couldn't decide on which ones to use.
Has some moments and is visually interesting but offers little else. -
SnoopyStyle26 December 2021In a weird old west Japanese world, the Governor (Bill Moseley) rules a town with his time obsession and his stable of young women. Ghostland is the wasteland beyond. Some of the girls escape. The Governor uses captured criminal Hero (Nicolas Cage) to retrieve his favorite Bernice (Sofia Boutella). He puts Hero in a leather suit rigged to explode. Hero's former partner Psycho (Nick Cassavetes) is a real psycho.
This is Escape from New York and Judge Dredd and whatever craziness coming out of director Sion Sono's brain. Nick Cage is doing more of his weirdness and I applaud him. I want to him all the room he needs. In this case, it's too weird even for me. It gets unwieldy. There's one small example. In the first group tick tock moment, not everybody is moving their heads in the same way. Sono needs to sell that by doing disturbing unison movements. I'm willing to go with the weirdness but it has to be done better. This is style over control. This is walking on a knife's edge. In the end, I can't recommend this except for Cage's completists and Sono fans. -
BA_Harrison18 September 2021Nicolas Cage has steadily built a reputation for being a kooky actor, with recent performances seeing him dialling the craziness up to eleven; Sion Sono is a director who seems to be trying to outdo Takashi Miike in terms of surreality. Prisoners of the Ghostland, from the producers of Mandy, sees Cage and Sono teaming up to bring us what has to be the most thoroughly contrived piece of bizarre cinema I have ever seen. It's wall-to-wall weirdness, but everything feels so meticulously calculated to confound that it proves irksome in the extreme.
The basic plot sounds like exploitation heaven: when wealthy warlord The Governor (Bill Moseley) discovers that his adopted granddaughter Bernice (Sofia Boutella) has hightailed it into the badlands, he springs a notorious criminal (Cage) from jail and offers him his freedom if he can bring the missing girl back. To ensure compliance, the criminal is fitted with a leather jumpsuit with explosives fitted to the neck, arms and groin, which will explode if he fails to follow orders.
Sadly, Sono's approach makes the movie an impenetrable mess, every frame an exercise in the absurd - if the aim was to make a film guaranteed to bore, irritate and confuse in equal measures, then he succeeded. The director captures some stunning visual compositions with breath-taking use of colour, which makes it all the more frustrating that nothing in the film makes any sense, and most of it is just plain annoying. I have my suspicions that Cage didn't know what was going on either, but he was probably just grateful for the pay check, and does his crazy routine obligingly.
1/10. By all means watch if you absolutely have to see Cage holding his own bloody testicle after it has been blown off by one of the suit bombs, but don't say I didn't warn you. -
Fella_shibby18 September 2021I am a fan of Nic Cage n i love the above mentioned genres but this one is beyond redemption.
Trust me and save ur precious time.
In our hindi language we call such kinda atrocious movies CHUTIYAPA. -
srjcochrane14 September 2021This emphasises the issue that Cage has in selecting scripts that must have been written on toilet paper. This was just crap. Don't waste you time.
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abisio17 September 2021Without any doubts; Nic Cage and Sofia Boutella could not fail. Well it fails awfully. Please pay attention; I am not drunk There is a mix of Western, Kabuki theater, Mad Max (?) and the movie itself looks like old Roman Theater with chorus, and signs explaining history. There is also some kind of Ghost in the middle.
Nothing really makes any sense; stages have a naïve style like in 60s movies, acting is unbearable (Cage seems to be fooling around). The rest are cartoonish.
Sofia Boutella tries but it is impossible for her to save this mess.
If you see the comedy "The Play that went wrong" well is basically the same but without any comedy intent.
Sion Sono has made some interesting movies in his country Japan and perhaps this have some kind of cultural meaning; but in America is just shamefully absurd for everybody including the viewers.
Do not lose your time unless you have to see it to believe it. -
Zeus-pro14 September 2021If you want to spend some time with a 2021 Nicolas Cage vehicle, please check out "Pig," which despite that odd title is actually one of the best films of the year and serves as reminder of how great Cage can be with the right material.
Despite the director's ambitious vision, there is simply so much that feels reminiscent of the Mad Max franchise. I really wanted to love this film, but I didn't. If you're a Cage fan, Prisoners of the Ghostland is worth a look. -
Top_Dawg_Critic23 September 2021That was director Sion Sono's vision, and he did not disappoint putting it on film.
However, having actors-turned-wannabe-writers Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai with barely to no writing experience come up with this screenplay, was wackadoodle. I got annoyed with the number of production companies displayed in the opening credits, you'd think at least one would've invested in a seasoned writer to at least look over the final script. Safi and Hendry wrote a bunch of incoherent, convoluted, plot-hole and technical-issue riddled nonsense.
The 103 min runtime, sub-par pacing, and many long dragged out and unnecessary scenes, made this film seem like it was 3+ hours long.
Luckily, with Sono's directing and Sohei Tanikawa's near-perfect cinematography, the eye-candy sets, crazy costumes and props, and stunning visuals kept me hooked. The score was fitting and on point. The casting and performances were excellent, especially Nicolas Cage (who this role was made for) and Sofia Boutella.
It's a shame no one babysat the writers, as this could've easily been a cult classic. But as is, I'm thinking this would've been a much better music video backdrop for Pink Floyd or Metallica album. It's a very generous 6/10 from me. -
neckthrust17 September 2021Genre-bending, yes. But somehow finds a way to ruin each individual genre they play with. Utterly nonsensical plot, weak effects, not a single likable character, horrid dialogue, and some pretty atrocious lighting don't make for a great movie watching experience.
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JasonMcFiggins1 February 2021Nicolas Cage. Seems like that's all it takes to garner instant interest in a film, as the actor has achieved living legend status in the eyes of many genre fans (and for good reason). In his latest, Prisoners of the Ghostland, Cage plays Hero, a ruthless, imprisoned bank robber set free by a wealthy warlord known as The Governor (Bill Moseley, even more to get excited about), and tasked with finding The Governor's kidnapped "granddaughter", Bernice (Sofia Boutella, always exciting, in more ways than one). Taking place in the post-apocalyptic Samurai Town, Cage's Hero is strapped in a leather suit set to self-destruct in 5 days, including detonators located in the vicinity of each testicle (testicuule, The Governor pronounces it), and encounters gunslingers, ghosts, samurai, and a crazed cult. The film puts Cage in an Escape From New York meets Big Trouble in Little China scenario, and the end result is a movie just as wild as you would imagine, an enormously entertaining adrenaline rush that brings the Cage Rage.
Once the film is set up and our Hero is on his journey, the film has plenty of unexpected laughs and is very funny at times. It almost works as a spoof of the Western, action genre. "What a badass," "he's so cool," say a couple of awestruck onlookers as Hero chooses a dainty bicycle with a basket instead of the black sports car when he leaves on his journey. He does eventually end up with he car because, tick tock, the clock is ticking on that deadly leather jumpsuit.
While looking for Bernice, Hero is lead to a torched, windswept landscape with crumbling mannequins swaying back and forth, cracked and broken shells that conceal prisoners inside of them. Every turn in this world holds a different danger, a threat to end Hero's life at any moment. And all of this is handled with such confidence by director Sion Sono, creating a thrilling and playful and insane world of filthy neon. Imagine Mad Max as a supernatural Samurai Western.
In the middle of all this madness is Nicolas Cage, wonderfully off the wall and right at home in such a place. It feels as though the film was inspired by Cage's reputation playing odd characters, giving the film a match-made-in-heaven quality. If Cage gives Prisoners of the Ghostland it's unlikely (anti) hero, it's Sofia Boutella as Bernice who gives the movie its glimmer of hope. It's Bernice we root for as she's the possibility for a brighter future in the Ghostland. What an exquisite performance from Boutella alongside the scene stealing Cage.
There's a religious-like fixation on time in the Ghostland. The inhabitants hold the giant clock displayed on the bones-like structure of an old capital building at 8:14, fearing if it hits 8:15 the atomic blasts will once again wreak havoc. The people who live under The Governor refer to him as a clock, as time itself. In the Ghostland, everyone is a prisoner to a forgotten existence, to a lifestyle lost. Time has vanished for the prisoners of the Ghostland, only recognizable in the form of their rulers. This fixation with time really pushes Hero's race against the clock to the forefront, as well as any hope the future of the Ghostland has left.
Prisoners of the Ghostland presents a unique vision from filmmaker Sion Sono ( it would make for a great double feature with Ana Lily Amirpour's The Bad Batch). A bloody, dirty, balls to the wall, gorgeous looking blast of color, chaos, and redemption in a land of hopelessness. Nicolas Cage leans into his Nicolas Cage persona, Bill Moseley has fun as a smooth talking, white suit wearing cowboy, and Sofia Boutella steals the show with a subdued, beautifully heartfelt performance. Big time entertainment, Prisoners of the Ghostland is a must see. -
Nicolas Cage and Sion Sono are a match made in heaven and it shows in this crazy, surrealist, Neo-Western, Kabuki ghost story.
Cage & Sono's styles mix perfectly, complimenting the bizarre yet seamless amalgamation of traditional Japanese & American culture into one world where somehow nothing feels out of place no matter how much absurd stuff is thrown at the wall. -
vinnypatel-8936514 September 2021What was this movie!! Give me a refund for my time to watch this, I could have had better entertainment washing the dishes after dinner.
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Tweetienator21 September 2021I don't know, Prisoners of the Ghostland got some interesting ideas but the whole affair looks unfinished, unpolished. Even the visual quality of the movie would need some serious editing and reworking - everything looks like some takes from pre-production status. How Nicolas Cage and Sofia Boutella got involved into this movie, I can't understand. For sure, Prisoners of the Ghostland is not the worst movie ever but rather a disappointing and unsatisfying experience. Not recommended, or only to those who want to watch everything that got Cage and/or Boutella casted. This is not a trip on acid but rather a hangover after a night with too much cheap beer involved.
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paul_haakonsen9 October 2021Sure, the poster/cover for "Prisoners of the Ghostland" definitely looks really interesting, I will say that much. And yeah, I opted to sit down and watch this 2021 movie given the fact that it was a new movie that I hadn't already seen, and also because it has Bill Moseley on the cast list.
Well, "Prisoners of the Ghostland" is a strange movie, even for a Nicolas Cage movie. Even by his standards, then this movie is out there, way, way out there. From the whacked out storyline to the insanely bizarre imagery, props, costumes and sets.
I found the storyline in "Prisoners of the Ghostland", as written by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai, to be very odd and bizarre. It was so far out there that the movie suffered from it, as it grew annoyingly and frustratingly tough to sit through, as most of the things made little to no sense, or was just so wacky that you just don't get it.
The acting in the movie was as to be expected. I wish that Bill Moseley would have been given more on-screen time, because he was - hands down - the best thing about the movie. Sure, it was nice to see Sofia Boutella on the screen, but she seemed to be running on auto-pilot. And this was, for better or worse, just another notch in the strange movie career of Nicolas Cage.
The characters and the dialogue throughout the course of "Prisoners of the Ghostland" was pretty bad, and that reflected rather poorly on the overall movie.
I am sure that there is an audience out there for director Sion Sono's movie "Prisoners of the Ghostland". But as it happened to be, then I wasn't the target audience. And I can't claim to have found much enjoyment or entertainment in this particular movie.
My rating of "Prisoners of the Ghostland" lands on a generous two out of ten stars. -
deloudelouvain23 November 2021Nicolas Cage did it again! I don't get what his deal is? He's not a bad actor so it's always a mystery to me why he agrees to those stinkers all the time. Does he even read the scripts? Or is it just about money for him? Will he just do anything as long as you pay him? Prisoners Of The Ghostland is another movie with Nicolas Cage that is painful to watch. Not visually though, that was actually fine and that's why I scored it with three stars, but the story, or more the lack of a comprehensible story, that's what makes this movie bad. Nothing makes really sense, you almost know it from the start but you continue watching it in the hope something will change, but it doesn't... Another timewasting movie that I wished I didn't watch.
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diarkosophy17 September 2021I'm going to start off looking at the 10 star reviews. I just don't understand how anyone could be so positive about this movie. I felt like I was in a Redlettermedia's "Best of the Worst". Never have I laughed so much and so hard at parts of a film that I did not think were intentionally funny. Never have I ever face palmed so many times or had to stop a movie due to pure confusion. Not confusion due to complexity or something like that but due to wondering "why" as in why did the filmmaker chose any of this? This film is astonishingly absurd and not in a good way.
There was one scene that just screamed Mandy and low and behold this film is from the makers of Mandy. I did not like Mandy, Pig, tolerated Willie's Wonderland and skipped Color Out of Space. I'm coming to the conclusion that I just don't like Cage or his acting anymore. I don't really blame him though. The Rock, Con Air and Face Off will always be classics to me but this is pure grade A nonsense. I never put spoilers in my reviews but for this film I just have to mention something that happens in the begin that really doesn't spoil anything but if you are adverse this is your spoiler alert. Cage is given a car to go on his timed quest. He gets out of the car and takes a beat-up bike and everyone thinks he is so cool. At this point I thought the film was going to be intentionally funny and self aware. Nope, he gets about a hundred feet and is stopped by someone who throws him the keys to the same car. He than drives the car...What!? I am still so baffled.
Anyways this is getting too long so if you like films that focus on Asian culture, Cage, decent scenery and camera work you might enjoy this more than me but I think I'm being way too generous giving this a 4. I laughed so much. I just, I just don't understand. Why? Why to everything. -
I ended up walking out of this movie. I'm a big fan of Cage's gonzo approach to films, and appreciate the whacky, nonconformist nature of his work. While many of his movies skate on that artistic edge of absurd/genius, this one just kinda sucked. Felt contrived to the point that it was unwatchable.
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kosmasp10 July 2022No pun intended - prisoners do intend at least to break free. It's not like they do succeed most of the time. At least if you consider over the long run. But this is something different, something really different - a movie by Sion Sono that is starring Nicolas Cage - it did sound like a wet dream come true.
Well if you have high hopes for this, you better tone them down. I already had them watered down by others. And even though I did not want to believe them, I have to admit, after watching this - it is rather weird if I were to put it mildly.
It still is well done and shot - visually speaking it works. It still has a lot of Nic .. Cageirisms (or whatever you would want to call them). Especially when he holds a speech to rile people up ... while simultaneously cursing them out too.
If that is enough for you and you don't mind the craziness - you could do worse. But if you do expect a bit more of a movie that has or rather could have been so much more ... well, do not feel too dissapointed ... unfortunately it was bound to happen (no pun intended). -
rashedd-417193 September 2021This movie is one of the worst movie that I have seen this year. It is considered as an action movie yet it has no action scenes.
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msbreviews5 February 2021If you enjoy reading my Spoiler-Free reviews, please follow my blog :)
Nonsensical. Absurd. Ridiculous. Just plain stupid. These words usually serve to describe an incredibly awful movie that I try to forget forever and ever. However, some extremely rare pieces of absolutely crazy filmmaking are also characterized by the adjectives above, offering me the most entertaining time I can possibly ask for. An example of this case is Prisoners of the Ghostland. It's exceptionally dumb, follows a narrative completely devoid of any logic, and mixes up dozens of many genres by using different costumes, all sorts of epic scores, and character archetypes.
Boasting an impressive production and set design (major Hollywood studios should be envious), Sion Sono offers the audience precisely what they expect from a film starring the maddest actor alive, Nicolas Cage. From the well-choreographed, well-edited, explosively bloody, hilarious action sequences to the infinite storylines, the viewers either accept whatever lunatic plot point or device the movie throws at the audience, or this is going to be a festival of pointing out what's wrong with the whole film. Prophecies, nuclear wars, zombies, samurais, cowboys... every generic development and formulaic characters we always see in every genre are present in this amalgam of pure chaos.
As expected, Cage shines in another role that will probably generate thousands of new memes, but this time Sofia Boutella and Bill Moseley also deliver two captivating performances that kept me invested when Cage was out. The only problem I have with this type of movie is the balance of the whole craziness. I don't mind every single minute being packed with utterly ludicrous stuff, but when it starts getting genuinely confusing, that's when it becomes too much for me to handle. Nevertheless, as long as you keep your mind open and focus on the protagonist's main mission - and solely on that - you'll be able to enjoy this movie as much or more than I did.
Prisoners of the Ghostland is everything a film starring Nicolas Cage is expected of being. Possessing technical attributes of making the biggest Hollywood studios shamelessly hide with envy, Sion Sono's movie is as illogical, absurd, ridiculous, stupid, and insanely entertaining as I hoped it would be. By mixing up dozens of distinct genres, the straightforward premise gets sucked into a world of total anarchy, where samurais, cowboys, nuclear explosions, modern cars, and much more collide to surround an otherwise simple narrative with nonsensically hilarious storylines and awesome action sequences. Sofia Boutella and Bill Moseley help Cage tackle this chaos, but the latter is the absolute standout due to his remarkable experience in crazy films. Despite it occasionally crossing the line and becoming too much for me to manage - it becomes seriously confusing - as long as the viewers are well-prepared to accept every jaw-dropping new development, fun is guaranteed with this brilliant satire.
Rating: A- -
Gordon-1131 October 2021The story of "Prisoners of the Ghostland" is poorly explained, and I don't really understand it. Visuals are strange, bordering on bizarre. I can't say I enjoyed it.
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aeongale14 September 2021Coupled with an adjacent village that resembles a Mad Max dystopia made by Terry Gilliam. In short, it's a story about a guy that has to rescue a girl. It's not a standard action movie, normies aren't going to like it as you can see from the bad reviews. It's as weird as Mandy but with the "wtf?" factor toned down a bit. Does it make sense? No, not really. I think there's is a metaphor about time throughout it though. Is it good? Well, it's visually interesting and you'll get some laughs from it.
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ianchapps14 September 2021Acting bad Story horrible Directing abominable Do not waste your time on this. Honestly if you can get through 15 minutes of this without cringing, you've done very well.
Watch Cage's previous movie "Pig". Its everything this isn't!! -
jfgibson735 October 2021Nicholas Cage continues his streak of incredibly odd film choices. I didn't like this one as much. At first, I was enjoying how wild it was, throwing all kinds of different, silly elements together. Eventually, it just felt like they didn't have much of a story, and the crazy stuff started to get less entertaining. I think the filmmakers thought they were being artsy, humorous, or both. I didn't feel that way.