Seventh Son

The mundane medieval movie ‘Seventh Son’ is indicative of the cinema wasteland that the beginning of a brand new movie season trudges in after the New Year arrives. In any event, ‘Seventh Son’ is in good company (or is that bad company?) with flaccid fare such as the sci-fi eyesore ‘Jupiter Ascending’ and the meatless melodrama ‘The Boy Next Door’ joining the parade of putrid pictures occupying the big screen at the same time. What is even more shockingly shoddy about ‘Seventh Son’s embarrassing presentation as a sluggish supernatural movie misstep is the inclusion of Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges (‘Crazy Heart’) and current Oscar-nominee Julianne Moore (for 2014’s ‘Still Alice’) saddled in director Sergei Bodrov’s (‘Mongol) period piece sci-fi sludge. Bridges’s gray-haired evil-bashing spook and Moore’s wicked witch may very well deserve to have their SAG cards revoked upon audiences sitting through this faceless fantasy of hocus-pocus.

‘Seventh Son’ wastes no time in setting up its familiar, generic premise involving a mentor-trainee tandem in the wise and haggard spook Gregory (Bridges) and his youthful farmboy protege Thomas Ward (Ben Barnes), an apprentice learning the ropes in taming the evil-doers that dare to exist and persist. Get this…old Gregory is considered a laughingstock (in addition to appearing as a leading personality in this ludicrous narrative) for believing in the evil-minded forces that he warns about consistently. Well, Gregory’s warnings are not so humorous to the naysayers when the sinister witch Mother Malkin (Moore) makes her hostile presence known. Resembling ‘Maleficent’s gaudy twin sister in wardrobe, Mother Malkin escapes her confines to concentrate on two treacherous tasks at hand: seek revenge on the meddling geezer Gregory and, of course, to control the world under her devilish grasp. The sorcery sass Malkin means business and the desperate Gregory must contain her with the recruitment of the chosen Thomas.

Naturally, Thomas comes...

This is a good, solid fantasy adventure. It is not a “wow great” kind of movie but definitely enjoyable to watch, at least if you are a fan of fantasy, magic, dragons and such like.

The movie is based on a book which I have not read although I believe it is considered as a young adult book. The movie seems to reflect this in that it has a fairly simple, straightforward, adventure plot. This is a movie made to entertain with magic, adventure, a bit of humor and visual effects. Nothing more and nothing less.

In my opinion it does so fairly well. I do like Jeff Bridges in his role as a rather wacky hunter of evil witches who have fallen into a dark and uncaring attitude towards the world around him. Uncaring about everything except slaying of witches that is. Ben Barnes, portraying the apprentice and Seventh Son is unfortunately making a rather bland impression. Then Julianne Moore is definitely better as the evil witch.

No movie where fantasy, magic and dragons are among the main themes can be without special effects. So, not surprisingly, there are a fair amount of them in this movie. I think they are generally well made and complements the story well without being overdone.

On the whole I liked the movie. It is a simple but solid adventure story with just the right amount of a few humorous remarks, nice visual effects, a bit of romance and action.