The Wicker Man unintentionally funny
From Frank Scheck

NEW YORK—Far more ambitious and stylish than most of today's horror crop, Neil LaBute's remake of the 1973 U.K. cult classic "The Wicker Man" unfortunately still falls far short of its mark.
Unlikely to inspire a passionate following similar to the original, the film, which opened Friday without screened in advance for critics, ultimately induces more titters than dread.
LaBute has long explored the relationship between the sexes in his work, and he has infused this version of the story -- about a policeman in search of a missing little girl who travels to a remote island populated by a perverse pagan society -- with a feminist touch. Replacing the original's Christopher Lee as the leader of the clan is Ellen Burstyn, who presides over a female-dominated population in which the men are essentially the worker bees.
The film begins creepily enough with a strikingly staged pretitle sequence in which Edward Malus ( Nicolas Cage), a California motorcycle cop, watches in horror as a mother and her little girl are incinerated in their car after a crash. The emotionally fragile cop is thus more vulnerable to an urgent message from Willow (Kate Beahan), the fianc饠who dumped him years earlier. Writing from a remote island called Summersisle in the Pacific Northwest, she begs him to help her find her missing daughter.
Arriving on the island after great difficulty, he finds a strange agrarian society dependent on its harvesting of honey. The women, all addressed as "Sister," treat him with frostiness and suspicion, while the men are strangely silent. He encounters obstacle after obstacle while attempting to find the girl, nearly dying from drowning and bee stings in the process. Ultimately, he discovers that the reason for his presence on the island has more sinister ramifications than he possibly could have imagined.
Director-screenwriter LaBute is unable to invest this strange gothic material with the requisite degree of menace. A more accomplished stylist might have pulled it off, or possibly the film might have worked as a delirious black comedy. The filmmaker goes somewhat in the latter direction, abetted by Cage's expert slow-burn reactions to the bizarre situations he encounters. But the film, which eschews the eroticism and religious subtexts of the original, eventually lapses into unintentional humor, with such lines delivered by the actor as "Something bad is about to happen, I can feel it" (uttered after about 100 bad things already have happened) and his warning one woman to "Step away from the bike" inducing giggles. By the time of the intended horrific climactic scene, which includes Cage in a bear suit and Burstyn in face paint looking like Braveheart, things have gone irretrievably downhill.
It's too bad because for a good part of its running time, "Wicker Man" exerts a real fascination. It also boasts terrific production values, including beautiful widescreen cinematography, a suitably eerie score by Angelo Badalamenti and creepily effective performances from supporting players Frances Conroy, Molly Parker, Leelee Sobieski and Diane Delano.