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The acclaimed actor could be the ideal selection for a audacious scary movie focused on the biblical figure, but not for the motivations some viewers might assume. Actually, the star does not even play the central religious figure in The Carpenter’s Son: his role is listed simply as The Carpenter. Cage is cast as a father figure in this story, striving to keep his beliefs while his son (acted by Noah Jupe), their adolescent foster child, starts to show divine powers. The explanation it's challenging to envision another major actor in this role is that even as the figure grows weighed down with numerous difficulties, Nicolas Cage seems nearly moving certain that this gloomy, bleak small film is worth his time.

The Actor's Latest Film Selections

Cage was using that time more judiciously recently. He continues to does more films than the majority of average viewers will ever see — for instance, are you aware that he has completed a trio of distinct frontier films over the last few years? — but he also mixes in high-profile critically acclaimed roles such as Dream Scenario, another notable movie, and Longlegs. This new film appears to be one of those, as it’s not strictly scary, likely to stir debate, and handles a campy-sounding concept with gravity.

Movie's Plot and Direction

Unfortunately, filmmaker Lotfy Nathan fails to repay the audience's focus. The film opens in a compellingly nomadic setting, marketed as drawing from an unknown scripture about Christ’s childhood. Cage's character, the maternal figure, and their child travel from place to place, fearful of faith-based hostility or distrust about their son's strange powers. “Disaster trails us,” Cage sadly observes. That continues when sinister entities target the household where they currently live, initiating on that familiar Biblical temptation for the son.

Sometimes, the movie resembles an demonic possession-type possession movie, though none of the lead characters are clearly inhabited. Instead, they grow progressively isolated from each other, when these forces affect a resident female (the actress, named an outsider) that The Boy bonds with, and provides each character disturbing images of a dark tomorrow. The Carpenter especially grapples with his role within the plot, occasionally berating the boy who mystifies him.

Discussion and Sensitivity

This material is prone to stir disagreement, and the director approaches it with a lot of delicacy — excessive, perhaps. The idea of a teenage boy dealing with his destined offering and seduced by unknown powers is certainly terrifying, but the filmmaker might be wary of seeming gratuitous and anxious to indicate his aims, therefore he regularly falls back on gloomily threatening visuals. The roles constantly ponder — the singer-actress, who displayed real promise in another movie, interestingly — cedes her acting to her character's costume, sometimes broken up by a few gnarly horror imagery.

The Star's Acting and Movie's Shortcomings

Simultaneously, the actor dabbles in just the sort of exaggerated performance that those who enjoy his campier roles might be looking for. One scene (also included) in promotional material in which Cage loses control and yells “My faith has been shattered!” If that kind of florid outburst is included in your Jesus-themed horror movie, possibly a more brazenly silly approach would make better use of his eagerness to go over the top as required. On the other hand, the film more closely resembles the poorer straight-to-DVD productions Cage made through much of the 2010s — excluding the campy action films so much as the serious stories and supernatural thrillers that typically appear interesting, and usually have several notable memorable scenes, but finally come across like, frankly, cheap home video fare.

Truthfully, some of those, although simpler, were easier to view overall. Here is where I need to break my personal rule, not religious but work-oriented: Long ago, an admired senior urged me to eliminate descriptive terms like “tedious” or “uninteresting” from my reviewing language. Such terms express scant but a personal and generically described restlessness, withdrawing from the job of vibrantly communicating the mental and feeling of viewing an individual production. It's hard to convey boredom without sounding boring yourself. It's equally vague as terming a movie “engaging.” “Say more,” essentially.

But I must confess, I felt uninterested for a large part of the film. On the positive side, it’s a churchy kind of dullness, not due to this movie is preachy, but since it demands a kind of obedient endurance to sit through it. After a while soon after starting, the film enters a repetitive rhythm of simmering distress, and fails to