‘The Carpenter’s Son’ assessment: Followers of Cage rage, skip this and go to church

What would Jesus do if his early years had been informed as an unremarkable horror movie?

It could in all probability be one other alternative to forgive, together with the very straightforward act of forgetting “The Carpenter’s Son,” a dingy alt-biblical slog that doesn’t even have the kitschy sense to make use of Nicolas Cage correctly as a paranoid Joseph who isn’t positive if his child comes from the nice place or the dangerous one.

Author-director Lotfy Nathan’s inspiration is an apocryphal 2nd century textual content referred to as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which purports to explain the incident-filled childhood of a temperamental Jesus. It’s by no means been broadly accepted Christian canon, however there’s no purpose why what isn’t holy scripture couldn’t be a holy-moly script. Within the Egyptian-American filmmaker’s retelling, a mixed-up boy (Noah Jupe) working from persecution along with his religious dad, the Carpenter (Cage), and ethereal mom (a blank-faced FKA Twigs) is a superhero in ready, with a bloody gauntlet of nightmares to get via first.

A kind of is surviving his personal start, introduced right here in a sequence of torchlit, squishy labor that’s removed from the twinkly manger of Christmas-diorama concord. Onscreen, the textual content reads “Anno Domini,” in case it’s not clear whose umbilical wire is getting minimize. “They’re coming for him,” his papa intones. Mother’s anguished childbirth moaning segues to these of younger girls close by having their infants ripped from their arms and thrown right into a bonfire. Barely escaping the scrutiny of the king’s killers, this new household escapes.

A time shift takes us to when the boy is 15 (to not point out sullen, bored-looking and wracked by violent visions of crucifixion). Our trio lands in a distant settlement that affords them the possibility at a easy life, albeit below the Carpenter’s strict precautions in opposition to evil spirits: boarded home windows, numerous praying, staying clear and ensuring the boy sticks to his education. Enticing mute lady Lilith (Souheila Yacoub) attracts the lad’s peeping gaze. However then there’s the younger androgynous determine with mysterious scars (Isla Johnston), who appears intent on giving the brand new child classes in rule-breaking, to not point out cynical steering about his future.

“You realize who I’m, however who’re you?” this coaxing stranger affords, which is sort of a playground retort twisted to sound pseudo-philosophical. Nathan, by way of his completely pedestrian directorial fashion, by no means precisely masks who it’s anyway. Nevertheless it positive makes for monotonous viewing. In the meantime, the petulant Jesus begins feeling his powers and is abruptly referred to as a savior by some, a malevolent sorcerer by others. Principally, he’s yet another uninteresting film juvenile.

With its flat location visuals, B-movie gore (snakes pulled from mouths) and colorless rating, “The Carpenter’s Son” is the uninspired origin story you by no means prayed for. Nevertheless it actually seems like a wasted alternative when Cage is onscreen, sporting what seems to be a middle-aged man’s try at a Rachel haircut, saddled with boring dialogue about religion and worry and customarily behaving like a reformed maniac below sedation.

“The Carpenter’s Son” desires to combine it up with an invented (and what some may name blasphemous) narrative about that point Devil nearly seduced brooding teenage Jesus. However not letting Cage go biblical? That’s some type of sin in opposition to cinema.