The Pope's Exorcist | Film Review

I'm not the biggest fan of 'Exorcist' movies. I enjoy demonic movies that feature exorcisms, but other than the original 'The Exorcist', I've never seen an Exorcist movie that I've really enjoyed. Nevertheless, this one being very recently made/released, somewhat based in truth, and starring a well-known actor, made me think that I might enjoy it more than other similar movies I've seen.

The Vatican's leading exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth (Russell Crowe) investigates the possession of a child and, in the process, discovers a conspiracy the Vatican has tried to keep hidden.

So unfortunately, again, I didn't really like this movie.

The first scene is fine but felt a bit overdone. We have seen exorcisms begin movies many times and this one didn't offer anything particularly special or original.

Although the story centres on the priest while most exorcism movies centre on the family being possessed, it still didn't feel very original, or like something the audience has never seen before. And while this issue may stem from the fact that parts of the movie are based on true events, it would have been nice to have a few new ideas here mixed in with the old.

It's not particularly scary.

It doesn't make you care about any of the characters, or the actual story. In fact, other than the Father, I don't think I could name one character.

The film tried to give Father Gabriele a backstory, but the story they gave was very underdeveloped and didn't really help the audience understand the character any better.

Overall, as I've mentioned, I don't particularly love this genre, but I have definitely seen better exorcism movies than this. It was full of things that anyone who has ever seen an exorcism movie has seen before, and didn't give us anything new to engage with.

3/10