Nicolas Cage has been busy over the past several years, releasing at least one film a year, including the highly anticipated Longlegs, which just opened in theaters. One of the recently released films is the monster movie Arcadian. That’s what we are here to talk about.
Arcadian is set in the near future when life has been forever changed. Paul and his two sons, Thomas and Joseph, have been living a half-life—tranquility by day and torment by night. After the sun sets, they face the unrelenting attacks of deadly creatures.
The movie is directed by Benjamin Brewer and written by Mike Nilon, who also happens to be Cage’s manager/agent. Arcadian has some severe issues, the biggest of which is that it is a monster movie with dreadful monsters. They look ridiculous. The CGI is terrible—the worst I’ve seen in a while. That says a lot. These things look stupid, not scary. They do this fast thing where their mouths open and close at high speed, and it’s laughable. When a monster movie has terrible monsters, it’s a tragedy. Honestly, they ruined the movie that otherwise had a lot of potential.
While the monsters failed to impress, the acting didn’t. Cage and young stars Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins gave solid performances, with the teens shining. They took their roles seriously in what could have been a good movie.
The story was interesting, though it didn’t provide much backstory about how the creatures came to populate the world. The movie had a lot of action, suspense, and drama. But it sadly left me disappointed.
The Verdict:
Archadian is a movie whose potential and talent are outshined by shitty monsters that look cheap. Would I recommend it? No. It will just leave you disappointed. But you can find it streaming on Apple TV, Prime Video, Shudder, and VUDU, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
