Hello All,
As I may have mentioned in my last review, I was suffering from a case of the flu that evolved into a two week long episode, causing me to miss a shit ton of new releases, six in the past two weeks in fact. Now while I can guarantee I’m not going to see all of them, there are a few that peek my interest and may loop back to when I can. I managed to squeeze one in tonight (albeit on a bit of a whim and really good timing) and saw the aforementioned Last Witch Hunter. So how was my first foray back into movies after a long time (for me anyways) away? Let’s find out shall we?
Plot Summary - Kaulder (Vin Diesel) is a witch hunter who was cursed with immortality in the middle ages while killing the witch queen. In the present, witches have an uneasy truth with the humans, including the banishment of black magic, which is upheld by The Axe and Cross, the order which Kaulder works for. When Kaulders handler The 36th Dolan (Michael Caine) is suddenly attacked with black magic, he and the 37th Dolan (Elijah Wood) and another witch Chloe (Rose Leslie) join forces to find out who's responsible and stop an evil plan.
Pros - I have to give best performance and best story arc both to Elijah Wood. Not only is his character arc probably one of the most well done and unexpected I’ve seen recently, it actually drastically changed my opinion of how good the movie was when a key moment in his story happened. The way he plays it too and just can switch on a dime when needed was also really good. The rest of the cast is solid for the most part, no real major complaints. The cinematography and the world presented is extremely fascinating and honestly again is done really well. There were also some really interesting twists in the story which one could argue could’ve been seen coming but was still done in an interesting way.
Cons - In between all the cool world building though, there is just a ton of exposition dumping. There is so much of this movie that is told rather than shown and I honestly couldn’t follow about 99% of it. It affects the way the characters relate to the audience too because like I said the cast is good, but it’s hard to figure if we should be concerned about what’s happening to them when what’s happening is given no context. They also managed to make every climatic villain fight a really anti climactic ending. They’re all very abrupt and just leave you sitting there going “wait that’s it, what the hell?”. There’s also the relationship between Kaulder and Chloe which I will say it didn’t go the route I did, but it was hinted at so much, and they barely gave her a reason to stick around other than he said he’d protect her. She basically gets dragged into the story because plot. The worst thing though was that they brought her in so fast I didn’t even know her name until the movie was almost over, and that’s never good.
Final Score - 4/10
There’s enough here for some people to make this like a guilty pleasure film for them, but for me personally it just misses that mark. The lack of a better told story and an overall sense of vagueness prevents you from getting truly invested into what’s happening.
So there’s actually a couple of movies coming out on Friday, and what a coincidence I just happen to have the day off. Why? Well, all will be revealed in due time.
Until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.
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