Movies: "Seventh Son" Fails to Convince

“Seventh Son” is based on the dark fantasy book “The Spook’s Apprentice,” by Joseph Delaney, which is the first installment of his “Wardstone Chronicles.”  The story tells of a young man named Thomas Ward (Ben Barnes), who soon becomes the apprentice of a “Spook” named John Gregory (Jeff Bridges).  Just based on this film, my guess is that they’re basically Ye Olde Ghostbusters.

The Spooks go after witches, ghosts and such.  In this movie the evil witch queen Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) rises back into power after years of captivity and will unleash chaos and terror throughout the land with her evil buddies.  It’s up to Gregory, Tom and their giant assistant Tusk (John DeSantis) to go and destroy Malkin and her evil forces.

I remember seeing the first trailer for this movie all the way back in 2013.  I thought to myself, “Eh, not too sure about it, but I’ll give it a chance when it comes out.”  It was set to be released in February of 2013, but it took nearly two years to get a release.  That is always a bad sign. 

Probably the best thing I can say about the film is that Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore give very interesting performances, though Bridges’ performance is an odd one. 

Bridges in this movie is basically a fantasy version of Rooster Cogburn from “True Grit,” with the facial hair of Don Quixote.  It also seems to me that the voice he uses in the film is his Cogburn voice with a combination of both the Ian McKellan and John Huston version of Gandalf from the “Lord of the Rings”/”Hobbit” movies. It’s not dull, at least there’s that. Also, if you’re a fan of “The Big Leboswki,” as I am, you’ll be making similar Dude and Maude jokes in your head, as I was.

But the biggest problem with the film, as with any lackluster fantasy film, is that this world is barely developed.  I’m sure stuff is explained in the book and the series, but there is stuff in the film that just left me baffled.  

For example, there’s apparently a rule or thing about how humans can’t marry witches.  Okay fine, but it is never stated.  It is hinted at through the love story between Thomas and Alice (Alicia Vikander), who is the daughter of a witch but nothing is established.  Why?  Why can’t they get married?

I could forgive that if the love stuff was well acted at least.  But that is not the case.  I hate to be cynical about this, but the love banter between the two was painful—not because it was romantic and expressing emotions, but mainly because I kept slapping my head at the stupidity of the characters.  They kept changing their motivations, and the reasoning never made sense. 

I could go on, but this review is going on long enough.  Check it out if you’re interested, but I can’t recommend it that much.  Maybe the books are good.