The Exorcist: Believer

Last night I went to see The Exorcist: Believer and it isn't quite as bad as I was led to believe by all of the negative reviews but, after seeing the original last week, I was very underwhelmed.  Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and his pregnant wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves) are vacationing in Haiti when she becomes trapped during an earthquake.  The baby ultimately survives but Sorenne dies of her injuries despite a voodoo blessing.  Thirteen years later, Victor's daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) go off into the woods to conduct a ritual to contact her mother's spirit and then they disappear for three days.  When they return, they don't remember where they have been but, other than burns on their feet, they seem fine.  However, they soon begin exhibiting troubling behavior and Victor seeks a medical answer while Katherine's parents Miranda (Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz), who are very religious, suspect that the girls went to Hell for three days and brought back a demon. Victor's neighbor Ann (Ann Dowd), a former Catholic nun, sees similarities with another famous case of possession and, even though he no longer believes in God, Victor decides to contact Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) in his desperation.  She tells him about her research into the exorcisms found in different cultures which leads him to assemble a Catholic priest (E.J. Bonilla), a rootwork healer (Okwui Okpokwasili), Katherine's family's Baptist pastor (Raphael Sbarge), and a Pentecostal preacher (Danny McCarthy) to conduct an exorcism but, ultimately, he must be the one to save his daughter.  I was impressed with Odom's nuanced performance because he is able to convey so much with very little dialogue.  Jewett and Marcum are also very compelling but Burstyn's return feels more like a gimmick than an essential part of the narrative which is disappointing (her screen time is much shorter than I was expecting).  I really enjoyed the first act because it slowly builds tension in a very unsettling way (although there are some strange editing choices) and Victor's loss of faith as a theme calls back to the original but then it completely loses focus during the exorcism with too many characters and very muddled ideas (I'm not even sure what the movie is trying to say).  I think this had a lot of potential but, unfortunately, it becomes too convoluted and chaotic in its execution so you can probably give it a miss.