Review // Seventh Son

[projekktor id=’17561′]

Seventh Son follows the trials of Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) as he trains to become a Spook (a knight that fights against creatures of the Dark) with the last remaining member of a legendary order, Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges). Based on the fantasy book series The Wardstone Chronicles (or The Last Apprentice in the US) by Joseph Delaney, the film sees the duo face off against Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), a fearsome dark witch who has a grudge against Master Gregory.

To be honest, I didn’t have high hopes for this film. It had a pretty rough road to the big screen, jumping from one studio to another and getting pushed back in favour of a post-production 3D/IMAX makeover. Eventually, Seventh Son got dumped in February – the month where botched summer blockbusters go to die. I’d like to say the film surprised but it didn’t. The worst part about this movie is that it starts off pretty strong. We’re introduced to Gregory, his idealistic assistant (Game of Thrones‘ Kit Harrington) and a haunting Mother Malkin. The well paced scene sets up the stakes and characters well. The bar fight between Master Gregory and a local thug shows us there’s more to this old man than a drinking habit. The old Spook and his apprentice head out to a local church where they exorcise a young girl, which leads to the return Mother Malkin, a foe Gregory thought he destroyed years ago. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much downhill from there.

The script is weak. Despite an intriguing plot (which does make me want to explore the original text), the story felt rushed and the dialogue was distressing. At times there wasn’t enough dialogue. One example being the scene in which Gregory is negotiating with Tom’s parents to take their boy as his apprentice. Everyone knows Tom’s going to go with Gregory. Tom’s the seventh son of a seventh son and therefore a Spook whether he’s trained or not. But, during this scene his family offers a few dissatisfied grunts as Tom storms out of the hut they call a home. It’s hard to tell if he’s upset or excited. Sometimes the dialogue is eye roll worthy bad. Take the scene where Tom touches the young witch Alice (Alicia Vikander) for the first time: a blue spark emits from their hands and her reasoning is that happens when a witch first touches the man she is meant to walk hand in hand with forever. Bring on the cheese, I know, except it doesn’t even do that. Despite a clear attraction to one another the declaration of destiny doesn’t bring on the romance. In fact they just look away awkwardly and physically draw apart. Ahhh the old boy-meets-girl, girl’s-a-witch and boy’s-a-witch-slayer romance…

The characters are worse. This probably goes hand in hand with not having a good script to work off of, but with an A-list cast it’s disappointing to see them waste their talents. Most of the characters are under developed – and what we do know about them comes from repetitive, expository dialogue. At the very least, Jeff Bridges seems to be having fun with the role but his fun is my dismay. He’s experimenting with an odd accent that makes him sound like he has a mouthful of food – or maybe he was constantly talking with food in his mouth? His character wasn’t constantly eating…it’ll take a second viewing to figure that out. Bridges does revel in the few one liners he delivers and in the general merriment of making a fantasy film and playing an old grouch. Julianne Moore plays a scorned witch who spends the majority of her screen time sulking, or transforming into a winged beast, or cupping her hands around the faces of her followers in a threatening manner. It’s weird. What’s worse is how underused she is. Mother Malkin’s screen time is split between her human form and her daemon form – I’d call it a dragon but it’s more delicate, like a giant reptilian bird. Moore’s a great actress (see Still Alice) and I expected her to be a bad-ass witch, but her character comes off more like vengeful shrew than a truly evil villain. Younger audiences might find Mother Malkin scary, but she seemed more comical to me.

I know I just spent most of this review tearing Seventh Son apart, but it does have its highlights – the special effects and CGI are pretty cool. The final fight scene does a good job mixing CGI creatures and old fashioned stage fighting. Ben Barnes and Alicia Vikander show promise and Canadian character actor John DeSantis shines as the scene stealing Tusk. It has its moments but overall Seventh Son just doesn’t hold up. The premise of an epic fantasy adventure with a Big Lebowski reunion sounded exciting but ended up being a major disappointment.

Reviewed by Vithiya Murugadas.