Mandy 2018 * * Stars

Director: Panos Cosmatos
Year: 2018
Rated NR
Rating: * * Stars
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache

"I'm you're God now!" The bloodied flick I'm about to review is not "Godlike" as some critics have suggested. It's just style that begets style, symbolism that begets symbolism, and ferocity that begets ferocity. And yeah, there will be blood. Oh yes, there will be blood.

Anyway, Thor: Ragnarok is what happens when self-indulgent art film, grandiose horror film, and dim-lighted action film combine. Oops, wrong vehicle. I'm talking about Mandy, a Nicolas Cage affair where Cage wears his caked face like Martin Sheen a la Apocalypse Now. As something that only takes place in the darkest hours, Mandy projects like a standard revenge tale that doesn't get going till the 70-minute mark. In truth, Mandy is a Roger Corman wet dream, a fantasy-ridden tale rudely set in 1983, and something where a chainsaw fight gives Captain Cage L. Willard a chance at a new, fresh kill. Somewhere Barry Manilow is fuming and is in maligned, faint mode.

As far as fall releases go in 2018, Mandy has red and black colored hues and a penchant for medieval credit titles. It lives in its own, twisted world where entertainment value is necessitated and out of place aliens need to be identifiable. Heck, I couldn't recommend Mandy unless the Death Race crowd cornered me at a scheduled comic-con convention.

Mandy chronicles Red Miller (played by Cage in subtle, Cage "rage" mode). Miller loses his girlfriend to a sadistic, religious cult and seeks vengeance on said cult. The moral of the story is don't mess with a man whose loving chick gets slaughtered by quote unquote, "Jesus freaks". You'll get the proverbial horns and the wrath of a silvery ax Cage-style.

Mandy as intolerable reverie and improbable stoner pic, salutes Italian director Panos Cosmatos as a screw loose, visionary helmer. The problem is that is his vision is rooted in pretension, lost in viable storytelling modes, and deemed way too far out of left field. The audience might be bored and exhausted halfway through. Bottom line: I'm going with a rating of 2 stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson