FILM REVIEW OF ''THE LAST WITCH HUNTER" (2015)

“The Last Witch Hunter” (* OUT OF ****) casts spells that are far from inspired and mediocre at best.  “Dungeons & Dragons” aficionado Vin Diesel toplines this ponderous, PG-13 rated pabulum as an 800-year old protagonist who struggles with the help of the Catholic Church to preserve a precarious peace between witches and mankind.  Not only does Diesel appear incredibly miscast as an immortal “Highlander” type medieval warrior careening around contemporary New York City in a sports car, but also this witchy washy yarn doesn’t surpass superior witchcraft fantasies such as “Snow White and The Huntsman” (2012) and “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” (2013).  The chief problem with this lavishly-produced, CGI-laden extravaganza is that it takes itself far too seriously.  Apart from its dire shortage of humor, this dreary potboiler suffers from a dearth of quotable dialogue, banal adversaries, and second-rate supporting characters.  Gifted thespians like Oscar-winner Michael Caine and Elijah Wood shrivel in lackluster roles as our hero’s sidekicks who are designated as ‘Dolans.’  “Sahara” director Breck Eisner and three scenarists, Cory Goodman of “Priest” along with Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless of “Dracula Untold,” have conjured up a synthetic storyline that generates neither charisma nor spectacle.  Actually, they appear to have imitated the sensational Wesley Snipes’ vampire saga “Blade” right down to its rebirth of an ancient blood demon.  Similarly, “The Last Witch Hunter” should have bristled with non-stop momentum, violently outlandish combat sequences, and a coherently contrived mythology.  Instead, it degenerates into a dreary mumbo-jumbo melodrama.  The most ambitious CGI scene pits our hero against a clumsy beast known as ‘the Sentinel,’ and he destroys behemoth with a sword as if he were a bullfighter straddling it.  This unruly creature resembles a huge tiger that appears as it if were assembled from wicker and features a jet engine afterburner for its gullet.  Our hero’s chief adversary is a hideous Witch Queen swarming with creepy crawlies who looks like she has spent too many centuries in a mud bath.  Moreover, she boasts none of the imaginative flamboyance of Charlize Theron’s enchantress in “Snow White and the Huntsman.” 

“The Last Witch Hunter” unfolds during the chilly Middle Ages.  A group of stalwart souls armed with swords trudge through snow-swept, mountainous terrain to storm an eerie cluster of haunted trees.  A despicable looking dame known as the Witch Queen (Julie Engelbrecht of the TV mini-series “The Strain”) inhabits this stronghold raging with fire and brimstone.  Predictably, she isn’t glad to see these bearded gate-crashers with their religious iconography.  This homicidal hag with her hatred for mankind has already decimated humanity with a black plague and incurred our hero’s wrath.  The Witch Queen’s pestilence exterminated our hero’s wife and daughter, and his happier times with them are recounted in several flashbacks.  When Kaulder (Vin Diesel with dwarfish dreadlocks) and the Witch Queen tangle, our fearless witch hunter skewers her with his flaming sword and finishes her off.  Ironically, Kaulder survives this trial by combat, but his survival becomes a tribulation.  “I curse you,” howls the wounded witch.  “You’ll never know peace. You will never die.”

 

Afterward, “The Last Witch Hunter” shifts its setting from the 13^th century to the 21st century.  Our brawny, shaven-headed hero with neither dwarfish facial fuzz nor noggin fur prowls a passenger jet as it encounters foul weather.  Actually, an ignorant young witch has smuggled a dangerous collection of runes aboard the aircraft, and she is to blame for the increment weather.  Naturally, our erudite hero invokes his age-old wisdom and defuses these volatile artifacts.  Nothing about this scene creates either suspense or excitement.  As his own personal reward, Kaulder seduces a nubile stewardess before he sits down for the last time with his 36^th Dolan (Michael Caine of “The Dark Knight”), a revered Catholic cleric who has spent the last 50 years chronicling our protagonist’s escapades for posterity.  Incidentally, Dolans are members of a covert Axe and Cross society within the Catholic Church.  Like Kaulder, they have devoted themselves to maintaining an uneasy truce between humans and witches.  In “The Last Witch Hunter,” witches walk the earth with mankind, just as vampires did in “Blade,” but few people know about their phantasmagorical presence.  Kaulder and the clerics act as intermediaries who work alongside the crafty Witch Counsel to keep these necromancers in line.  Kaulder captures witches who illegally practice black magic, and the Witch Counsel entomb them in a maze of caves.

 

The 36^th Dolan is poised to retire, and the 37^th Dolan (Elijah Wood of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) prepares to replace him.  Although he saved the 37^th Dolan from a coven of witches, Kaulder doesn’t immediately recognize this newcomer.  Meantime, dramatic complications occur when the 36^th Dolan appears to have been murdered under mysterious circumstances by a shape-shifting sorcerer.  Kaulder discovers black magic at the scene of the crime and suspects that his ancient adversary, the Witch Queen, may have been playing possum all those years.  Along the way, Kaulder recruits a ‘good’ witch Chloe (Rose Leslie from “Game of Thrones”) to help him sort out the mystery.  Chloe’s claim to fame is her ability to cavort in dreams.  Happily, she rescues Kaulder from one disastrous dream after another when the Witch Queen’s evil cronies attack him on several occasions.  Our hero believes the solution to his quandary lies within his “Matrix” like dreams.

Ultimately, “The Last Witch Hunter” is largely incomprehensible gobbledygook.  Eisner and his scribes have enormous problems mapping out their complex witchcraft mythology.  They sprinkle bread crumbs of information about these conjurers throughout the muddled melodramatics, but seldom does anything about them come across as palatable.  Two surprises occur during these sluggish shenanigans, but neither are genuine revelations if you have paid attention to the formulaic plot.  The villains don’t stand out from the background, and the Witch Queen is stuck in the mud from the start.  Eisner orchestrates several big-budget action scenes, but these emerge as sloppy exercises.  Altogether, “The Last Witch Hunter” qualifies as hex-rated rubbish.

FILM REVIEW OF''SEVENTH SON" (2015)

Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges has made many memorable movies.  “Thunderbolt & Lightfoot,” “Jagged Edge,” “The Big Lebowski,” “The Fisher King,” “Fearless,” “Against All Odds,” “Men Who Stare at Goats,” “Iron Man,” “True Grit,” and “Crazy Heart” stand out among the more than 60 theatrical features that he has starred in since he started acting back in the 1970s.  Bridges’ latest outing “Seventh Son” (** OUT OF ****) proves that he can make an occasional stinker, too.  Making his English-language film debut, Oscar-nominated Russian director Sergey Bodrov, who helmed the 1997 Tolstoy tale “Prisoners of the Mountains,” has spared no expense in bringing this sprawling but predictable $95-million, medieval fantasy to the screen.  A posse of demon-possessed souls that can turn into voracious supernatural beasts tangle with our venerable hero and his naïve sidekick as the two struggle to vanquish an unforgiving witch.  Interestingly, this larger-than-life adaptation of retired English teacher Joseph Delaney’s young adult novel "The Spook's Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch," the first of fourteen books in his “Wardstone Chronicles,” has generated greater enthusiasm overseas.   Chinese and Russian audiences flocked to it.  Meantime, American audiences have shunned it, and box office analysts have branded this Universal Pictures release as a flop based on its dismal opening weekend receipts of little more than $7 million.

“Seventh Son” opens as the last of the Falcon Knights, Master John Gregory (Jeff Bridges of “TRON”), locks up the malevolent Queen of Witches, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore of “The Big Lebowski”), in an oubliette in a remote mountain range.  Gregory and Malkin, it seems, once loved each other.  Gregory abandoned Malkin for another woman, and the jealous Malkin killed Gregory’s wife.  Gregory retaliated and imprisoned Malkin for what he thought would be an eternity.  Designated as a ‘Spook,’ Gregory earns his living as a spell-casting, witch-busting, dragon slayer equipped with a flame-throwing staff.  He has dedicated himself tirelessly to the destruction of anything supernatural that frightens common folk.  Despite Gregory’s elaborate precautions, Mother Malkin breaks out of captivity many years later as a result of a centennial lunar event termed ‘the Blood Moon.’  The Blood Moon revitalizes Malkin’s evil powers, enabling this witch to transform into a winged dragon, and flap away to her own mountain-top fortress.  Master Gregory and young apprentice William Bradley (Kit Harington of HBO’s “Game of Thrones”) recapture this diabolical dame with arrows and a silver net.  Unfortunately, Malkin kills poor Bradley, and Gregory must recruit a new apprentice.  Gregory comes across another ‘seventh son of a seventh son,’ Tom Ward (Ben Barnes of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”), a farm boy living in relative obscurity who slops his father’s swine.  Tom reminded me of Luke Skywalker when he appears initially in “Star Wars.”  Anyway, Tom takes advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to escape from a life of drudgery.  Surprisingly enough, Tom had visions of his chance encounter before Gregory actually bargained with his dad to apprentice him.  Meantime, Tom’s doting mother, Mam Ward (Olivia Williams of “Sabotage”), entrusts her son with a unique magical pedant to wear out-of-sight around his neck.  While Gregory tutors Tom about witches, Malkin assembles her own culturally diverse posse of sinister shape-shifters.  Initially, Malkin enlists the aid of her younger sister Bony Lizzie (Antje Traue of “Pandorum”) as well as Bony’s pretty niece Alice (Alicia Vikander of “Ex Machina”), who are witches, too.  Alice beguiles young Tom and keeps the lad hoodwinked for about three-fourths of the film until he wises up about her treachery.  Ultimately, Malkin and her devils lure both Gregory and Tom into her own mountain-top fortress for a fight to the death under a blood red moon.

Essentially, “Seventh Son” suffers from second-rate scripting despite its impressive scribes: “Blood Diamond’s” Charles Leavitt, “Eastern Promises’” Steven Knight and “Reign of Fire’s” Matt Greenberg.  These guys have scrapped most of Delaney’s narrative in favor of something more bombastically cinematic but at the same time hopelessly incoherent.  For example, neither Mother Malkin nor any of her witches mutate into dragons.  Our heroes never ride horses and Gregory doesn’t ride off and leave Tom with his former residence.  Alice doesn’t leave of her own accord; Tom’s mom doesn’t die; and Gregory’s only other friend Tusk works for Mother Malkin. If you loved Delaney’s novel, you will probably abhor “Seventh Son.”  Moreover, the characters in the film lack depth, dimension, and/or decadence.  If you’ve seen “Season of the Witch” with Nicolas Cage and “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” with Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, you’ll know when to yarn during the formulaic, by-the-numbers, adventures.  Mumbling as if with a mouthful of marbles, a bearded Jeff Bridges appears to be imitating not only his own cantankerous “True Grit” character Rooster Cogburn, but also he channels a combination of Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan from the original “Star Wars” and Ian McKellen’s Gandalf the Grey from the “Hobbit” movies.  Whereas Obi-Wan and Gandalf emerged as flamboyant, Gregory is far from flamboyant.  His best scene takes place in a tavern where he wields a cup of ale without spilling a drop to thrash a presumptuous swordsman.  Oscar nominated actress Julianne Moore restrains herself as a despicable witch who can morph into an airborne dragon, entwine adversaries with her chain-link tail, and then skewer them without uttering a clever line.  Mind you, this description of Moore’s character sounds like she could have had a blast indulging herself, but she refuses to chew the scenery.  Comparatively, Moore’s lavishly attired, red-haired sorceress is nowhere as audacious as Charlize Theron’s wicked witch in “Snow White and the Huntsman.”  Sadly, secondary leads Ben Barnes and Alicia Vikander generate neither charisma as stock characters nor chemistry as an amorous couple.  Barnes is about as wooden as Hayden Christensen was in the second “Star Wars” trilogy.  Meanwhile, talented thespians like Olivia Williams, Kip Harrington, Djimon Hounsou, and Jason Scott Lee languish on the periphery of this synthetic sword and sorcery saga.  

Although it drums up minimal intensity between fade-in and fade-out, “Seventh Son” boasts some lively combat scenes that the 3-D visual effects enhance.  “Star Wars” visual effects specialist John Dykstra has created several outlandish CGI monsters, but few are terrifying.

The picturesque mountains of British Columbia are as scenic as “Canterbury Tales” production designer Dante Ferretti’s sets are spectacular.  Unfortunately, “Seventh Son” recycles the usual dungeons and dragon shenanigans with little to distinguish it from its prestigious predecessors.

FILM REVIEW OF "SOMETHING WEIRD" (1967)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, born independent filmmaker Herschel Gordon Lewis has many claims to fame. Among those accolades, many film historians cite him for creating the ‘splatter’ horror film. H.G. Lewis worked on the fringe and produced what most people derogate as ‘exploitation’ films. He acquired his reputation for “Blood Feast” (1963) and replicated the formula with two more gore features “Two Thousand Maniacs!” (1964) and “Color Me Blood Red” (1965).

Despite his recognition in the eyes of many film historians, H.G. Lewis has directed some potboilers. Budgeted at $35-thousand dollars, “Something Weird” (** out of ****)looks amateurish at times with uneven acting and sometimes out of focus, photography crops important information out of the frame. These two defects diminish what little credibility it musters from its thoroughly conventional, workman-like James F. Hurley screenplay that blends fairy tales with the modern day scourge of Communism. Don't read me wrong, however, because the murder scenes where the unknown assailant kills the women are filmed using Dutch tilt angles that make everything look askew. These scenes were superbly done and Lewis deserves applause for the way he creates an aura of unease in these sequences. However, in other scenes, either the Something Weird Video master cropped the widescreen picture or Lewis did not shoot the scenes wide enough to include all of the actors. Examine the scene when Mitchell wrestles with the severed power cable.

You can tell when Lewis and Hurley are slipping in exposition (information that we need to know about the action and the characters)into scenes that are designed to convey nothing but data. The theme that an individual have to pay for something to get something recurs throughout "Something Weird." Mitchell acquires his psychic ability but he also gets a hideously ugly face until the witch offers to fix his face. Mitchell has to pledge his love to her so that he can get a new face.

Basically, "Something Weird" makes you want to laugh rather than cringe when its melodramatics turn to antics. Lewis appears to be channeling Bill Gaines' notorious EC Comics. For example, the fairy tale subplot about an evil witch falls apart due to childish, Halloween make-up on the actress. It looks as if Lewis and Hurley decided to throw caution to the wind and camp up the witch factor. "Something Weird" comes off being more like "Something Wan" until the Vaudville witch crops up. Clocking in at 80 minutes, “Something Weird” remains mercifully brief and tosses in the legitimate use of the narcotic LSD in a plot about an individual burned so severely in an accident that he acquires a supernatural psychic ability.

“Something Weird” opens with a brilliantly lensed crime sequence. A man whose identity is concealed by the camera to generate tension strangles a beautiful young woman to death in what appears to be an alley. This serial killer of sorts will figure prominently later on in the story. Afterward, the scene changes to a martial arts studio where an instructor comments about his student’s improper exhibition of karate when breaking a board. Dr. Alex Jordan (William Brooker) has the instructor, Kim, show him the proper way. Later, we learn that Jordan is a womanizing James Bond type government man.

The scene shifts to an exterior where an electrician plunges from a telephone pole, hits the roof and then falls to the ground with a severed power cable dangling near him. His body flops involuntarily from the electrical charge and several other men surround him. One man, Cronin Mitchell (Tony McCabe), pulls the cable away from the prostrate body, but Mitchell suffers injury when the cable gives him a jolt of electricity and knocks him down and out. An old-fashioned style ambulance with red lights arrives and a medical crew hauls Mitchell’s body off on a stretcher to the hospital. Interestingly, the medical techicians ignore the other body on the scene.

H.G. Lewis pauses the narrative at this point to linger on a long shot of a cloudy sky and the following narration is heard. “Science knows that people contact the world around them by their five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. But many times a person reports an awareness of a happening when none of these channels could possibly be involved. This then is the sixth sense, the extra sensory perception, commonly known as ESP. The Russians for the past decade have intensified their experimentation in extra sensory perception research. They are working and experimenting on a crash program whose goal is to surpass America in the field of parapsychology. Dr. Alex Jordan, a renowned parapsychologist, is employed by a branch of the federal government for the top secret work in ESP and its relationship to American defense. This organization is determined that the United States will be the first to communicate with other planets, the first to advance in the field of ESP, and the last to perish in an all out nuclear war.” With this narration, Lewis has added a modicum of significance to “Something Weird” and turned it into a Cold War thriller.

The next scene finds Mitchell wallowing restlessly in bed in a dimly lighted hospital room, suffering from the memory of the accident. Lewis then cuts to a professor’s office at a nearby university where Mitchell’s doctor, Dr. White, has gone to consult about Mitch’s psychic ability. The professor is impressed with Mitchell. “Not doubt about it, Dr. White, Cronin Mitchells Now, it may be that his accident was the cause, I don’t know. Or it may be the electrical current he was subjected to. We have several theories.” Nevertheless, the skeptical Dr. White doesn’t share the professor’s opinion. He thinks Mitchell is a fake. “I have tested literally thousands of these psychics and he ran through my deck of ESP cards like it was child’s play.”

Later, Mitch proves his paranormal ability with a nurse as he guesses correctly each playing card she selects from a deck. She inquires about her future and then Mitchell makes a pass at her. She admonishes him for his inappropriate behavior and switches on the lights. The brightly lighted room propels Mitchell into the bathroom where he gazes in terror at his scarred face in the mirror. “You’re disgusting. No one can look at you, not even yourself” the nurse shrinks in revulsion. “A freak like you should have died!”

Eventually, Mitch makes a living where he reveals the future for $2 dollars a reading per client. He sports sunglasses and a dark veil so nobody can see his disfigured face. After work one day, he is surprised when the Bible of Witchcraft has materialized in his hands. Suddenly, a long gray haired crone in a yellow dress appears out of nowhere. Mitchell’s scarred face disturbs him so deeply that he listens to a Faustian proposition that this witch, Ellen (Elizabeth Lee), makes that he cannot refuse. “Become my lover then you shall have your pretty face.” Naturally, Mitchell agrees.

The complication is Ellen looks gorgeous to everybody else except Mitchell since he can see what she really looks like—a hag. The vain Cronin Mitchell becomes a celebrated psychic and appears on television shows. Dramatic events occur when Cronin tries to identify the serial killer with his psychic abilities in the small town of Jefferson, Wisconsin. The police cannot apprehend a serial slayer who has slain seven women in a month and has the local populace up in arms.

Meanwhile, the government dispatches Dr. Jordan to assist the Jefferson, Wisconsin, police. Jordan's superior wants Mitchell because he may serve as a new arsenal in the Cold War against the Soviets. Jordan emerges as an American version of James Bond. When he exits his superior's office, he makes small talk with his boss's secretary, kisses her and calls her 'pussycat.' Jordan mets Mitchell at the police chief's office and offers Mitchell LSD as a part of a question and answer session that he plans to have with the psychic. Complications arise when Jordan grows enamored with the witch, while Mitchell has an liaison for another woman. Jordan tries to force himself on Ellen and she bites his hand. Later that evening, in his motel room, Jordan is attacked by his bed covers in a scene that looks just plain absurd. Matters are helped when we catch a glimpse of Ellen in her haggy witch mode laughing at Jordan. The surprise ending includes three revelations. One of the cops is the insane woman killer and the jealous Jordan lets the crazy cop assassinate Mitchell so that he--Jordan--can have Ellen. Later, after Jordan admits to Ellen that he gave the killer time enough to ice Mitchell, Ellen reverts to hag mode and Jordan freaks out. He tries to escape from Ellen, but he slips and falls on a flamng smudge pot and burns half of his face. Ellen arrives and assures him that she can make him as good as new. "Something Weird" comes full circle.

“Something Weird” isn’t top-notch H.G. Lewi but it is entertaining nonsense. Indeed, it may strike most people who know nothing about his prestige as unintentional, half-baked, quasi-sci-fi/horror hokum. William Brooker gives a stilted performance, while the rest of the cast vary.