What's this? Could it be another remake? It certainly is. This time, it's the British cult thriller The Wicker Man getting the reboot and it comes courtesy of Neil LaBute, the talented film maker responsible for the brutal cautionary tale In the Company of Men (he also went on the make Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty, and Possession).

In The Wicker Man, Nicolas Cage plays officer Edward Malus, an obsessed individual hell bent on finding the whereabouts of a missing girl. His case takes him to the mysterious island of Summersisle, a town populated by a rather odd assortment of women who refuse to be cooperative upon interrogation. As Malus continues to dig deeper in hopes he might find the little girl, he learns that the residents of Summersisle might have a bigger part in the disappearance than previously thought.

This updating was penned by original Wicker Man scribe Anthony Shaffer (with an assist from LaBute), and aside from making Summersisle a town full of oddball feminists, the film sticks pretty close to the 1973 version in terms of overall plot development.

There are two big problems with this unnecessary remake. Firstly, the pacing is completely off. The original had a much stronger crescendo as it were. As Edward Woodward's Sergeant Howie began snooping around in the ‘73 version, there was a much more effective build. As the movie progressed, and things became increasingly weirder, the proceedings became far more engrossing. Here, things appear a little weird for the sake of being weird rather than pushing the story forward.

Secondly, the tone is completely off here. The choice to populate the island with eccentric women was an interesting one I suppose, but whereas Robin Hardy's movie had a sly, darkly humorous wit about it (think Rosemary's Baby), this version is full of odd comical moments (some intentional and some clearly unintentional) that felt out of place. Watch as officer Malus, dressed in a bear costume, begins bitch slapping residents of Summersisle, in an attempt to get closer to solving his case. While I'd be lying if I said the film didn't make me laugh my ass off, I don't know that LaBute's overall intent was to fashion a comedy. The humor drains the entire movie of any sort of intrigue. I suppose it could be argued that the entire premise has a kind of camp value to it, but Robin Hardy's film managed to walk that fine line between high camp and intrigue in a much more assured fashion.

Nicolas Cage, coming off a stunningly low key performance in World Trade Center, doesn't do much to ground the movie. He overplays much of the role, but it got to a point where the proceedings became so uber-silly, that Cage's manic acting style actually made the movie somewhat watchable.

The Wicker Man has it's moments (thankfully, Malus' fate at the end of this version is akin to Sergeant Howie's in the original), but as a whole it's a pretty big misstep for all involved, and it doesn't hold a candle to the little seen 1973 take. From the strange bursts of outlandish humor to veteran Ellen Burstyn's wildly over-the-top (but strangely entertaining) performance, to an awful, and I do mean awful, tagged-on sequel ready ending, this Wicker Man never finds it's footing (or rhythm for that matter), and while I'll take this over the likes of other remakes made in the past couple of years (i.e. The Amityville Horror), it's still rare little gem that should have been revered instead of redone.

We at zboneman.com are excited to welcome the prolific and multi-talented writer Victoria Alexander to our staff. Critic for http://www.filmsinreview.com/ and pundit and humorist responsible for the candid and fearlessly funny "The Devil's Hammer," her column appears every Monday on http://fromthebalcony.com. Start off your week with a good hard laugh. It's a thrill to have her on board. Victoria Alexander answers every email and can be contacted directly at masauu@aol.com.)