Directed by Mikael Hafstrom
(PG-13)
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The young Irish actor who plays the protagonist in this goofy exorcism thriller is not the reason people might be tempted to see it, said Bill Goodykoontz in The Arizona Republic. The chance to see Anthony Hopkins “trot out his Hannibal Lecter act” is another matter, and the former Oscar winner doesn’t disappoint. Hopkins is always “fun to watch” when he’s over-the-top, and he’s “way over-the-top” here as a priest in Rome who specializes in extricating demons. But it eventually matters that the young seminarian he’s asked to mentor “barely registers on the screen,” said Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. As a would-be priest of wavering faith, Colin O’Donoghue goes for “quietly troubled” but ends up hollowing out the story’s emotional center. “What did you expect? Spinning heads? Pea soup?” asks Hopkins after performing one fairly routine satanic expulsion. He’s right, said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. No one expected The Rite to be The Exorcist. Even if it’s merely an odd blend of “slow-burning horror flick” and “Vatican recruitment video,” at least it’s “mostly a watchable one.”
-
Nepal chooses toddler as its new ‘living goddess’Under the Radar Girls between two and four are typically chosen to live inside the temple as the Kumari – until puberty strikes
-
October 5 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's political cartoons include half-truth hucksters, Capitol lockdown, and more
-
Jaguar Land Rover’s cyber bailoutTalking Point Should the government do more to protect business from the ‘cyber shockwave’?
