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5 months ago

Arcadian

a review by CinemaSerf

OK, so I know I shouldn't have, but I did quite enjoy this. There are some seriously menacing beasties about and so every night dad (Nicolas Cage) has to lock his two sons "Joseph" (Jaeden Martell) and "Thomas" (Maxwell Jenkins) and himself into their home and hope their fortifications hold until morning. No, I didn't say it was original, but it's quite well paced as the loved-up "Thomas" manages to get a bit too close to these nocturnal monsters which causes his father to get injured and requires "Joseph" - the brains of the family (who reminded me the entire time of Dan Radcliffe) to come up with some clever ruses to keep the whole lot of them alive. Cage barely features which is no bad thing here as the two boys and girlfriend "Charlotte" (Sadle Soverall) make a perfectly good job of keeping the thing moving along quickly and quite entertainingly for and hour and an half. The visual effects aren't the best, but the claustrophobic settings; the regular axe-wielding; a fair bit of burrowing and a the help of a chest freezer work fine. You'll never remember it, and quite what any of it has to do with Arcadia is anyone's guess, but for light and fluffy summer cinema, it works fine.