I got
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist a few days ago on Amazon video. I actually liked it a lot. It was pretty good - not great, but good.
The acting was good; their Father Merrin did a good job, and several of the supporting actors were good as well. The setting was also nice; a Colonial African town where British missionaries are trying to stamp out the local culture and religion is a pretty nifty setting to put a priest having doubts. They also used it well in the film. They also managed to build a good aura of menace around the demon; he's a very effective, threatening character, and the conflict between him and Merrin is great.
It's got some problems, tho. Maybe the most obvious is the spots of really horrible graphics. A lot of the CG looks pretty bad - it never blends in at all, it's often obviously being rendered at a different resolution and it's never lit right. The CG hyenas look particularly bad, and the aura affect is both needless (there'd be more than enough weight behind the sequence it's in without it) and poorly-done.
There are also parts of the confrontation between the demon and Merrin that are a little too post-Star-Wars.
I also have a problem with them changing the character of the demon - spoilers ahead. In this movie, there's pretty strong evidence that the demon is not just Some Demon, but in fact Satan himself. In a way, the demon is underwhelming as Satan: while it causes some horrible things, this is right after World War 2; killing some local children and an army major and giving a priest nightmares sort of pales in comparison to, you know, the Holocaust. It also stretches credibility that Rachel could be stuck unconscious in an altar-chamber with Satan himself overnight and come out basically none the worse for wear. This is ostensibly the same demon that, in the Exorcist, killed a man by snapping his head around and then pitched the body out a window after being left alone with him for a few
minutes.
As a final note, I feel like they raise a valid question and never answer it - again, spoilers ahead. Father Merrin lost his faith over an incident he was involved in during the Nazi occupation of Denmark (I think). Significantly, A Nazi officer tells him that "God is not here today," after which "why does God allow these things to happen" becomes the major question that drives Merrin's crisis of faith. Well, if the movie ever gave us an answer to that question, I missed it; while casting out a demon convinces Merrin that God and Satan are obviously real, it doesn't explain at all why God allows atrocities to happen, which leaves me wondering - even in the context of the theology of the film - if a victory for God is really the best outcome that could have happened.
4/5 ~ $Bill
