Around a decade and a half after 'The Exorcist III' came 'Exorcist: The Beginning', a prequel focusing on Father Merrin backstory in the 1940's. Merrin here is played by Stellan Skarsgard, a reasonable choice for the role, but on the hole this movie just got so much wrong, it really shouldn't exist.
Ironically this movie contains extremely extensive reshoots, I've heard up to 90%; the original version of this film having been helmed by the great Paul Schrader, the studio did not like what they got at all, so they put an additional $50 million on top of the $30 million already spent and had Renny Harlin ('Die Hard 2', 'A Nightmare on Elmstreet 4') remake it. I plan on watching Schrader's version soon, Harlin's take was so poorly received that Warner Brothers decided to put the first version out anyway the following year.
This film lacks subtilty, it lacks emotional investment, the scale seems off the wall, it just doesn't feel like it fits into the world of the first film; which is true really to varying degrees with all the sequels, but it's most on display here. The overuse of early 2000's computer effects doesn't help at all, this movie kind of wants to be a darker, more brooding Indiana Jones, but it doesn't even want that enough to fully follow through. Like number 3 this movie also contains a twist I hated, though not as much as in the previous film.
There is really nothing in this movie worth recommending, it's just awful. *
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