I would never discourage anyone from making a movie (unless it was those guys who made the Date Movie movies and the like), but there are some sub-genres which filmmakers should avoid. Why? Because a certain film defined that sub-genre and any subsequent film in going to be compared to it. For example, any movie about animals on the loose is going to be compared to Jaws (especially shark movies). Or any mafia movie is going to be compared to The Godfather. These are obvious choices, but even within those sub-genres, there's a lot of room for diversity. A far narrower sub-genre is the exorcism movie. Can anything compete with The Exorcist? That thought certainly didn't daunt Italian filmmakers in the 1970s and it didn't stop the people behind The Rite.

Colin O'Donoghue stars in The Rite as Michael Kovak, a young man who feels trapped in his life. He doesn't want to follow in his father's (Rutger Hauer) footsteps and take over the family mortuary business, so he joins the seminary. However, after four years of study, Michael feels that his faith isn't solid and that he's not ready to become a priest. His advisor, Father Matthew (Toby Jones), recommends Michael for exorcist training. Unconvinced, but curious, Michael flies to Rome and begins the classes. There, he meets Angeline (Alice Braga), a reporter who is doing a story on the program. Aware of Michael's reluctance, Father Xavier (Ciaran Hinds) urges him to visit Father Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hopkins), an exorcist living in Rome. Michael goes to see the old man expecting nothing, but he immediately witnesses an exorcism. Intrigued and confused, Michael continues to work with Father Lucas, and as the days progress, the things that Michael sees becomes stranger and more bizarre. Are demons real?

The Rite is a brooding film and it starts off quite slowly. But then, Michael is sent to what I was hoping would be exorcist boot camp. Well, I've certainly never seen that in a movie and I thought that it would give the movie an original take on the genre. However, it doesn't and the rest of the movie commits the worst sin that a movie can make: it was boring. The movie never gains any momentum and it feels like a series of unconnected scenes, as Michael works with Father Lucas and then wanders around Rome experiencing odd occult happenings. The movie attempts to throw exciting things at the audience, but they simply never work.

These scenes don't work for two reasons. First of all, we've seen it all before. Apparently The Exorcist truly laid the groundwork for portraying an exorcism in a movie, because everything here looks very familiar. How many times do we have to sit through a scene where the gravelly voiced possessed person knows intimate information about someone or where they can suddenly imitate a person that the priest knows. Cliches abound in the exorcism scenes here, save for levitation, and I feel certain that this was in the filmmakers bag of tricks. Given the popularity, no the domination of The Exorcist in popular culture, you would think that the makers of The Rite would want to show something a little different. (Not to mention the fact that the third act of the movie seems to lift a plot point from The Exorcist.)

Secondly, the movie can't make up its mind what it wants to be. As I remember, The Rite was advertised as a horror movie, and while it certainly contains some horror movie traits, it doesn't necessarily fall under that banner. In reality, it plays more like a dark drama which wants to appeal to a religious audience. Director Mikael Hafstrom, who previously made the impressive 1408, knows something about horror, seems to have made two movies which were edited together. The movie has some supernatural scenes, such as a dream Michael has in which a hand with long, dirty fingernails reaches for him. But, then we get vaguely horrific scenes, such as a room full of frogs. And then there are the completely wacko moments, such as the evil mule. Evil mule? Really? The mood is all over the map, and the movie can never commit to anything. Judging by the movie as is, and a few of the deleted scenes, I would be willing to bet that at some point The Rite was more of a straight ahead horror movie, but something happened in the editing room.

Didn't Anthony Hopkins retire from acting like 10 years ago? Why would he want to be in a movie like this? Again, the exorcist training school is a great idea and if the movie had stuck with that, it could have been different and exciting. But, it decides to take the easy way out and it looks like every other movie about priests battling evil. Confused and derivative, The Rite is more like The Exorcist-lite.

The Rite taught me that Rome is infested with feral cats and that's pretty cool on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Warner Home Video. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 29 Mbps. The image is sharp and clear, showing only the slightest hint of grain and no defects from the source material. The picture is slightly dark at times, but this isn't distracting and the colors look fine. The level of detail is fairly good and the image has a nice amount of depth to it. The Disc contains a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 3.9 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The exorcism scenes provide effective subwoofer effects, as the demonic delivers some deep rumbling. The stereo and surround effects also work well during these scenes and during crowd scenes as well. Audio coming from the left or right of the screen is accurately portrayed and nicely detailed.

The Rite Blu-ray Disc contains only a few extras. "The Rite: Soldier of God" (7 minutes) contains an interview with Father Gary Thomas, the man on whom the movie is based. We also get comments from Matt Baglio, the author of the source materials. The piece contains pictures of the real "Exorcist school". This is actually far more interesting than the movie. The "Alternate Ending" (2 minutes) only replaces the film's coda, and it's actually quite effective. Why would they take this out? The Disc contains four DELETED SCENES which run about 13 minutes. These are all relatively long scenes, two of which bring in more horror elements. One can't help but wonder what the original direction of this film was.