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| Legendary Pictures |
For a couple of reasons,
it would be wrong for me to say that I regret watching Seventh Son. The first reason being that, when I first heard about
it or saw the marketing for it, this movie could not appeal to me less. The
second reason is that I came late to the party (or lack thereof) when it comes
to seeing Seventh Son as I saw it a
week after its release, so I knew the overall consensus. And yes I know, as a
critic, I should do my best not to go into a movie having a preconceived
expectation but like I said, this is a reason why I should not regret watching
it. I knew I had a preformed opinion about how this experience was going to be
and I knew what I getting into, so there are no regrets. As you can probably
already tell, the reason I say ‘no regrets’ is not because it turns out that I
enjoyed the film but because I didn’t enjoy it, which really has little to do
with my opinion going into Seventh Son.
Based on the book ‘The
Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch’ by Joseph Delaney, Seventh Son centers
on Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), a young man who happens to have special abilities because he is
the seventh born son of the seventh son. Because of this, Tom is chosen to be
the apprentice of Master Gregory’s (Jeff Bridges), who is referred to as a
spook or someone who protects the world against supernatural evil. The recent
threat that they must defeat comes in the form of Mother Malkin (Julianne
Moore), a witch that Master Gregory locked away several years ago but because
of the upcoming blood moon, her powers are increased, allowing her to escape.
If Seventh Son is compared to the genre, an action and adventure
flick, that it is sold as than it starts flat but then continues to be flat,
though the finale is flat. It’s a film that clearly wants to rely on action
sequences and the spectacles that come with medieval sorcery but all of it is
so dull and pointless that it just slows the movie down.
Keep in mind though, when
I say ‘slow the movie down’, I’m not referring to an experience that is so edge
of your seat exciting that it becomes a travesty to interrupt it. Just like all
the bells and whistles, the story is equally uneventful. It becomes clear early
on that Tom and Master Gregory must stop Mother Malkin before the full blood
mood. Of course we know they are going to stop her but this is really all that
happens.
There is a romantic
story line in which Tom falls for a witch by the name Alice (Alicia Vikander)
who happens to be working under Malkin but just like every other aspect of the
film it is under written and has very little to do with the story. This story
line, along with the story in general fails to produce any type of intrigue or
tension. For example, the only way the audience can tell that time is running
out to stop Mother Malkin is when the moon is shown getting increasingly red
every twenty minutes or so and not by the characters actions, dialogue or
emotions.
So at this point, you
say, “What about Bridges and Moore? They have to make up for everything else
right?” No, their performances fit right in with the rest of the film. Both
Bridges and Moore are bad because of the script but they are also bad because
of themselves. In this stage of their careers, why they do movies that only ask
them to go through the motions and afterwards pick up a check is beyond me. Bridges
uses some pointless dialect that can’t be understood and Moore, when she is
actually on screen, is just kind of there, really never embracing the
villainous role (besides the times her character is a CGI dragon).
Maybe the most
interesting aspect of the film is Master Gregory and Mother Malkin’s past. It
is revealed that the two were once in a romance together but Gregory moved on
to someone else as Malkin became increasingly evil. This caused her to become
filled with jealousy and hatred that drove her to kill Gregory’s wife. This is only
shared in dialogue between Gregory and Tom, nothing being done with it. This
would be a storyline to get into which could be supported with flashbacks of
their relationship or even in current moments when the two interact. When the
two are on screen together towards the end of the film, for a small moment, it
becomes hopeful that the two are going to explore their past together but then
Gregory kills her, dashing all hope of this along with hope that the finale
would be worthwhile
Like I said, I didn’t
bring my A game into this one. I didn’t really care if I ended up not liking
it. It was just a viewing that happened. I didn’t expect to be blown away and I
wasn’t. The question is, were my expectations the reason I did not enjoy the
film. Let’s just say they are the reason for the film’s sake. This means if I
had no expectations going in, Seventh Son
would only be slightly better, still falling well below average.
Grade:
D
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