Seventh Son

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes, Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Antje Traue, Olivia Williams, John DeSantis, Kit Harington, Djimon Hounsou
Directed by: Sergey Bodrov
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
2015

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A monster hunter (Jeff Bridges) enlists the help of the seventh son (Ben Barnes) of a seventh son to help him fight an evil witch queen (Julianne Moore).

Review:

Tim: Seventh Son is better than I expected, yet still fairly disappointing. It's an odd movie, one featuring big names, lackluster graphics, an okay but overly complicated plot, and a lack of real engagement with the audience. It's the kind of film that might have meant well, but obviously misses its mark.

Fantasy is really, really hard to do. The Lord of the Rings is still the gold standard, and while The Hobbit films were among the better in the genre, they were still a step below. Most fantasy comes across as silly or childish. I like fantasy films and I sincerely hope we get more good ones. Seventh Son is fine, but it's hard to get too excited about what we see.

The plot is both simple and complex. In its simplest form, it's about a good warrior fighting an evil witch. In that lens, the movie is fairly predictable. However, the movie throws all this other information our way, making the story more complex than it probably needed to be. There's a big backstory between Jeff Bridges' and Julianne Moore's characters. There is a mother/daughter witch team whose loyalties are unclear. There's the whole deal of being the seventh son of a seventh son (which was never fully clear to me why it was so important). There's a host of monsters, creatures, friends and foes. To an extent, it serves to build the world around the characters. However, it's almost too much and turns the audience off a bit. The mythology is important, but it's a bit overwhelming.

The cast is surprisingly good for a film like this. I do have to say that Jeff Bridges didn't wow me here. He's doing his whole mumble thing, and it just felt like he was hamming it up too much. I suppose he kind of makes the character memorable, but it felt unnecessary and detracted from the character. Julianne Moore was fine as the witch queen, although it seemed like she knew she made a poor choice by signing onto this film. Ben Barnes was better than I expected in the lead role. I still don't ever see him being an A-lister, but you can do far worse in your quest for a protagonist. Alicia Vikander was good as a witch, although she didn't have nearly enough to do. I loved seeing Kit Harington, I just wish he had more screen time. Djimon Hounsou was another welcome sight, but like so many times in his career, his talent is vastly underutilized. I will say that the cast is much better than you would expect for a film like this.

While the whole thing felt too untethered to any identifiable reality, I admit there were some fun moments as our heroes battled a slew of evil monsters. The action scenes felt too dependent on CGI, but there's a certain glee that only comes from fantasy films battles. I did have some fun with those sequences, even if I wasn't very emotionally connected to any of the characters. I do appreciate that the film at least attempted to give us something different than the genre norm. I'm not prepared to say that the movie succeeded in that attempt, but at least it was made.

I didn't hate Seventh Son, but I can see why the release date was pushed back and ultimately it was dumped at the beginning of February. This film is too forgettable and too ineffective. It's not a terrible movie, but given the talent involved, you can only call this effort disappointing.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend:
The Chronicles of Narnia, The Golden Compass, The Lord of the Rings, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters