Nicolas Cage stars in this twist-filled supernatural thriller that follows Joe (Cage), a struggling truck driver haunted by the memory of his deceased wife and daughter. Joe’s life takes a dramatic turn when he meets Julie, a woman with mysterious spiritual powers, whose daughter, Billie, lies in a coma. Julie enlists Joe’s help to stop Billie from crossing over to the spirit world, but when Billie awakes, her body is possessed — by the vengeful spirit of Joe’s dead wife.
Nicolas Cage is an enigma. Nobody can make sense of the guy, no matter what he does. Once the toast of Tinseltown, and an Academy Award-winning actor, he seems to have lost his way. Having starred in such blockbusters as “The Rock,” “Con Air,” “Face/Off,” and “Gone in 60 Seconds,” to appearing in more dramatic fare like “Raising Arizona,” “Bringing Out the Dead,” and his Oscar-winning performance in “Leaving Las Vegas,” it’s hard to believe that this one-time powerhouse, has been reduced to starring in garbage like “Left Behind,” “Stolen,” “Trespass,” “Looking Glass,” and now “Between Worlds.” Every now and again he surprises the hell out of everyone with turns in decent movies like “Joe,” “Dying of the Light,” “Mom and Dad,” and last year’s zany and psychedelic “Mandy” but for the most part, it seems that he will accept roles in just about anything that comes his way. “Between Worlds” is a prime example of this.
Cage plays Joe, a truck driver on his way to Biloxi when he stops at a gas station one night to fill up on gas and food. While browsing the store, he hears grunts coming from the bathroom and when he goes to investigate, he finds a man strangling a woman, Julie (Franka Potente), in one of the stalls. He knocks the man out cold but Julie implores him to stop. They both leave the bathroom and Joe demands to know why she wanted him to stop the other man from choking her. She tells him that she has the ability to perform Astral projection, where her soul can leave her body and travel anywhere throughout the universe and states that earlier that morning, her daughter Billie (Penelope Mitchell) was involved in a motorcycle accident and is in the hospital in a coma and the only way she can perform Astral projection, is when she is near death. She wanted to reach out to her daughter as she wouldn’t have made it to the hospital in time to prevent her from crossing over to the other side.
Joe offers to take her to the hospital as it is on his way and when they enter Billie’s room, she wakes up and seems to recognize Joe, telling him to never leave her. Thinking she is out of her mind, a result of the accident and the medications she is currently taking, he obliges her and then makes his way outside to Julie. Feeling sorry for her, he tells her that he will stay with her for the night and then drop her home in the morning but before you can say “Put…the bunny…back…in the box,” the two are having rough sex in her living room. He decides to stick around and when Billie is finally released from the hospital, whenever her mother is at work, she is constantly hitting on Joe, who initially rebuffs her but because she is young and beautiful and parades around in front of him wearing see-through lingerie, he finally succumbs to her temptation and the two make out every chance they get like rabid rabbits.
She eventually tells him that she is Mary (Lydia Hearst), his dead wife who along with his young daughter, perished in a house fire years earlier. Julie begins to question Billie’s strange behavior and talks to a nurse at the hospital who just happens to be a witch doctor and saw her astral projection in Billie’s room the night her daughter was in a coma. She tells her that any spirit within distance of the unconscious body, can jump in and inhabit it and that Joe’s dead wife did exactly that. Julie makes her way back home with a plan to exorcize Mary but things don’t go according to plan and Billie knocks her out and has Joe take her to the remnants of their old house in which she and their daughter died. Wanting Joe to take his own life so they can be together forever, Julie follows them and tries to thwart their plan but things go awry and the house, once more, is engulfed in flames.
“Between Worlds” is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, bar none. Director Maria Pulera must have just started film school and this movie had to have been her very first project because I have seen 12-year-old kids’ iPhone videos with more credibility and stronger character development than this film has in its entire 90-minute runtime. Cinematographer Thomas Hencz has an impressive filmography but he must have realized early on that he signed up for a stinker and with no way to back out, just set the camera up in the most unimaginative positions as there is nothing visually impressive about this movie whatsoever. Cage is capable of giving good performances, even in bad films but here it seems like he isn’t even trying. This was clearly just another paycheck and co-star Franka Potente, so wonderful in “Run Lola Run” and “The Bourne Identity,” at least tries to deliver a plausible performance but when you are acting opposite someone with the emotional range of a cabbage, your own performance will not fare much better. Avoid “Between Worlds” at all costs. You have been warned!
Available on Blu-ray™ (plus DVD and Digital), DVD, and Digital February 26th
