Incarnate ReviewBy Old BobDecember 8, 2016What can you say about Incarnate? Not much that’s good, I’ll tell you that. If you’re looking for a movie to just sit in and waste an hour and a half, I’d recommend Incarnate. On the other hand, if you would like to spend an hour and a half of your life enjoying yourself, I’d recommend almost anything else.

Let’s start with the characters. At the beginning of the movie, you just get thrown into the lives of a boy and his mother, who’s played by Melisandre from Game of Thrones. (In my eyes, she has no real name, she’s just Melisandre.) I guess you could say a girl has no name. Boom. Nailed it. They’re carrying groceries into their apartment and, quite frankly, the most interesting thing about these characters is what food they have. We get a little backstory about them and they try to get us to care about them. Too bad it doesn’t work. The backstory is just too clichéd to matter to anyone. For about five minutes, the film feels like a heartwarming story about a mother and her son trying to make it in the world. Then, the kid gets possessed out of nowhere and – boom – now, I guess, it’s a horror movie.

The next scene is kind of out of place with Aaron Eckhart playing super cool random guy in the club. Turns out he’s getting rid of a demon. Fine, I’ll let it slide. Aaron Eckhart saves the guy and then he wakes up, or exits his mind, or whatever, that part isn’t super clear. When he wakes up, we find out he’s in a wheelchair, but at no point do we end up loving him like he’s Lieutenant Dan. The whole wheelchair thing was kind of lost on me, if I’m being honest.

Now that Harvey Dent is back from the Further, his assistant comes in, and right away all you think is, “Hey, this kid was the gay son in Wedding Crashers.” I mention this because that role is nowhere near iconic, which just tells you how bad this film is at making you care about the characters. After this guy is introduced, I’m just hoping Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn will show up to save the movie. Aaron Eckhart and his assistant talk about how deep he goes to get the demons out and then they mention some specific demon that apparently is very important to them. Okay, cool, whatever… you’re not doing anything to make me care.

All of the sudden, there’s a lady from the Vatican downstairs and that’s literally everything about her. She has no backstory and I don’t even remember hearing her name said once. The main point for her character was to need Eckhart to do something, then just disagree with him. She was “that person,” but, then, so was Aaron Eckhart’s best friend, at times. Boo, horrible.

Oh, wait; I forgot the kid has a dad that isn’t around, so now they have to find him. Guess who it is? A guy who only reminds you of the other roles he’s played. The generic deadbeat dad is played by Matt Nable, who is probably best known as Ra’s Al Ghul from the DC Arrowverse. The best way to describe him in this movie is, “a waste of space and a good way to fill time;” although, honestly that’s a good way to describe all the characters.

After an hour and a half, not a single character does anything to make you care at all about how their lives end up.

Now, for the plot…a shoulder, shrug, and half-hearted “meh” would perfectly describe the plot. Does everything resolve itself? Yeah; put a check in that box. Does the story flow and make sense? Pretty much; one thing leads to another and all that stuff. Does the plot draw you in and fascinate you? Ha; not at all. At times, the story feels thin, and at other times, you get the feeling that the writers were trying too hard.

Overall, you could make the case that the story was kind of original, but in the end, it made no difference. To wrap this up, don’t see Incarnate unless you want to zone out and question your life choices. People will forget this movie even came out in about 8 hours, so don’t even bother seeing it.
Rating: 3.2

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