Does Anthony Hopkins have THE RITE to Dethrone THE EXORCIST?

Short answer, yes he does, but he fails to do so.

So my best friend Ed Scary sent me an urgent email a few weeks ago saying "THIS MOVIE WILL DETHRONE THE EXORCIST AS THE SCARIEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME!! HANNIBAL LECTER GETS POSSESSED!!! THIS IS IT!!!" Yes, he and I are always on the lookout for the movie that will dethrone our beloved King of Horror films; William Peter Blatty's THE EXORCIST. I also had very high hopes to see one of the greatest, creepiest actors of our time take a swing at demonic possession on screen. I was ghoulishly, giggly with his performance. Let's see how the movies holds up to the King of Horror's "4 Quadrants of Terror"

• Great Story: THE RITE has a great story, it deals with a subject all of us  face at some point in our lives, doubt in our faith. A young Catholic priest Michael Kovak (Colin O'Donaghue) is having a serious second guessing of becoming a priest, until he find himself on the path to becoming an Exorcist. Father Lukas (Anthony Hopkins), goes through a similar inner doubt of his faith. Great character development, very good drama and of course, we have Anthony Hopkins
• Disturbing Imagery: Yes, but it could have been better
• Disturbing Sound: Definite, yes, one of the few movies who paid attention to this element and did a great job
• Creepy Music: No, although not creepy, the music is brooding and does build up when it needs to.

So I've been reading some of the reviews of these artsy, hollywood movie critics, some are saying that the ending was too much and blah, blah, blah. Well, I think the opposite, it could have been better, less was not more in this case.

We all know that Anthony Hopkins is going to get possessed and there is going to be a showdown between he and the protagonist, in this case, Father Kovak. I must say, Father Kovak is no Father Merrin so his being able to stand up to to a possessed Anthony Hopkins was not as believable as Max von Sydows Father Merrin going toe-to-toe with the demonic Regan (Linda Blair). I did like the exorcism scenes of the Rosaria (Marta Gastini) character as Father Lukas exorcises the demon from her. We had body contortions, pretty creepy voice, excellent dialogue between her (the demon) and Lukas, Kovak. But, there could have been more, it should, hell, it NEEDED to be over the top. Who can ever, EVER forget the "Let Jesus F*ck You" line and the scene to go along with it from THE EXORCIST?? And that movie was made in the 70s!!! Come on Hollywood??!!! You;re cutting up and torturing people on screen in filth like SAW and HOSTEL, just grow some balls and give us a movie to dethrone THE EXORCIST!!

I did like the creepy statue shots, the sound was great, I could hear the bones and ligaments cracking as the body contortions were happening, the eyes turning white, all very great details that need to be there. But, I was disappointed with the climax (yeah, thats what she said).

We have Sir Anthony Hopkins going demonic on us, lets pull out all the stops, lets make a phone call to the venerable Dick Smith to make Hopkins into the most hideous demon we have seen since Mr. Smith transformed a cute little pug nosed Linda Blair into probably the most hideous, terrifying manifestations of evil the silver screen has ever shown. But no, we were given a Hopkins with a bad case of liver spots and chain smoker wrinkles on his face. No red, demonic eyes, no long pointy tongue flicking out, no unforgettable smiling/laughing, no inhuman movement (crawling on ceiling or moving too fast to be human). We had all the possible elements that we may ever have in a film like this and they blew it.

But all in all a very entertaining movie and I will go out of my way to say probably the second best movie about exorcisms ever made. On a scale of 1-5 demon faces I give it a 4:

Until next time, keep up the FAITH!!