If you’re a fan of exorcisms and Anthony Hopkins you will enjoy this movie. As usual, Hopkins fills the screen with intensity and he is lovable as an experienced excorcist.
Newcomer actor, Colin O’Donoghue, plays an Atheist who goes to seminary school to become a priest. That choice is to avoid working in the other family business—a funeral home. If you can accept the premise that an Atheist would want to be a priest, good. The writing, though not original, holds together. If you like to believe in demonic possessions in lets you.
O’Donoghue has dark Irish, sexy, good looks but he lacks the magnetism that Hopkins has. He’s young so it might be worth giving him a chance to develop as an actor before slamming him as lousy. He’s not wooden like Keanu Reeves but he’s no George Clooney.
If you are a devoted Atheist you might find the ending disappointing. But it’s predictable right from the start. It is fun knowing that the flick will make a believer out of O’Donoghue’s character. It does. Ok, no surprise. If you enjoy thinking that maybe, just maybe, there is a demonic force then this flick is fun. If compared to the brilliantly frightening and well-written original movie about demonic possession, The Excorist, it would fall far short. But is far better than most of Exorcist’s copycats. The Rite holds together for what it is: entertaining. You’ll find it spooky yet not terrifying and creepy enough to satisfy if you’re a fan of this genre. I give it 3 stars out of a possible 4.
