After being pushed back multiple times, it’s hard to have any hope for a film with a January or early February release. I love fantasy but the aforementioned notion was enough for me to expect the worst, even from a film that was co-written by Steven Knight. Sergey Bodrov’s latest cinematic entry, Seventh Son, is a film that fails on so many levels due its cookie cutter formula and terrible script. This is a true misfortune since so many people seem to like the children’s novel that it was adapted from.
Seventh Son focuses on two characters, a Spook named Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), and eventually his apprentice Tom Ward (Ben Barnes). When a powerful witch named Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) escapes the prison that’s been holding her for years, she searches for the man that put her there, the Spook. During the encounter, Master Gregory’s apprentice is killed and he seeks out the next Seventh Son to teach him the Spook ways and aid him on his quest to kill Mother Malkin before she brings down her evil wrath on earth. Along the way Tom saves an attractive but seemingly kind witch, Alice (Alicia Vikander), and strikes up a romantic relationship with her even though she is related to Mother Malkin. Typical.
On paper, I could see why people would think Seventh Son was a good idea. It’s a young adult series that could easily turn into a franchise if done right, and when you have Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore in big roles, it’s hard to say no. The thing is, it’s the casting of Ben Barnes and a terribly campy script that makes this film an utter failure and, at times, hard to watch. Ben, in conjunction with some awful dialogue, just wasn’t charismatic enough to lead the film, it didn’t feel right. Instead, he came off as an annoying sidekick, especially due to the cheesy romance he struck up as soon as humanly possible. His delivery in these romantic moments was incredibly serious and didn’t really match the tone of the rest of the film, you know, the campy teenage film attempting to be the next Harry Potter.
The best scene in the film is also one of the most frustrating ones to watch. It’s the climactic battle between Mother Malin and her warrior leaders, which includes a bad-ass Djimon Hounsou as Radu, and the Spook, Tom and one or two other characters. Spoiler – One of the warriors is a man with four arms who is a master swordsman and there is a point where he ends up sword fighting with Alice. Now, somehow, she is able to fight this guy off for a while before being saved even though he is clearly stronger and more talented. This should have been a fight that lasted a maximum of seven seconds. End Spoiler. There are other similar scenes as well but I’ll stop there.
Despite all the negative feelings I have towards the film, there were a few things I liked. I enjoyed the campy nature of Jeff Bridges’ dialogue, even if he was doing his grumbling drunk schtick which we’ve become familiar with, it was funny. Also, I thought the effects and action were solid, the baddies were cool, the costumes were sweet and the creature designs were terrific. In fact, the monsters and creatures were my favorite part of the film. They weren’t standard monsters. Some were twists and hybrids of a variety of creatures. For example, Mother Malkin’s sister transformed into a dragon that had the tail of a bird, it was pretty cool. Unfortunately these things don’t come close enough to make up for the train wreck we experience in other areas of the film.
I can’t in good conscience recommend Seventh Son. Sure, it has all the elements of a fantasy film that I generally enjoy, cool monsters, some sweet action, a funny and grumpy old wise man, but the script and the way it was executed was brutal as an audience member. I found myself laughing at parts that weren’t jokes, saying “oh come on” and “are you serious?” in others. I’m generally easygoing on films like this but Seventh Son just rubbed me the wrong way and I’d advise everyone to save their money this weekend by staying at home or use it on something worth seeing, like The SpongeBob Movie (if you like SpongeBob).
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