Loosely inspired by the novel, "The Spook's Apprentice", an evil witch named Malkin (Julianne Moore) has broken free from imprisonment and is wreaking havoc across the land. An old spook and monster hunter named John Gregory (Jeff Bridges) recruits Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), a seventh son of a seventh son, to help him stop the witch.
Review:
Let me start off by saying that have not read the novel nor even heard of it prior to hearing about this. I went into this film expecting a cheesy but fun flick. Generally speaking, I often enjoy a good corny supernatural action flick. But this was quite disappointing.
Before I get to the point, let me go ahead and note that this film was originally distributed by Warner Bros. and was set for a January 17, 2014 release. But at the last minute, after releasing the teaser trailer, Warner Bros. sold the distribution rights to Universal and the release date was postponed to February 6, 2015. That is exactly an entire year plus one month. I have never ever seen that happen before. Apparently, Warner Bros. did not want to have anything to do with the project.
This film has a lot of things going for it, and it looked promising from the trailers, but after watching it, I can now see why Warner Bros. didn't want to feel responsible for it. But before I go into the bad things about the film, I am going to name the good things.
The Good:
I like the film's style, setting and tone. I liked Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore in this. They are what you would call the "strongest parts of the movie". I liked Julianne Moore as the villain. The witches and wizards are cool as well as their creature transformations. It has some intense moments and I really enjoyed the third act. Unfortunately, that is all that I can say about the good.
The Bad:
This film is, for the most part, a snooze fest. I was literally bored out of my mind throughout the first and second act. The characters are wooden, boring and just plain uninteresting. Jeff Bridges did a pretty good job portraying his character but his character is just boring. Bridges usually makes his characters entertaining (The Dude, Flynn, Rooster Cogburn, Starman etc.), but unfortunately, this is not the case. There is not a whole lot of action and nothing exciting happens until the last 30 minutes or so. The film is also uneven. The plot is rushed, the special effects are cheap looking and the opening sequence is downright laughable. The script is very derivative to the point where it felt like I have seen it all before. The final act is basically the only part of the film that I enjoyed.
Overall, Seventh Son, despite it's redeeming qualities, is a pretty poorly made film and I do not recommend it.
Max Scale:
3/10
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