A film with the makings of an epic and an interesting
setting ends up wasting its potential on trite clichés and even worse acting.
Seventh Son is another in a long line of Hollywood throwing
any stuff from a popular book and seeing what will stick, yet this films stuff
misses the wall entirely and hits the audience right in the eye. Based on the English
novel, “A Spook’s Apprentice,” Seventh Son tells the tale of Tom Ward, the last
in a line of monster hunters known as “spooks” whose job it is to protect the
land and keep powerful creatures at bay. Tom is sought out by an elderly spook
named Gregory, whose past evil comes back to wage war on humans.
Seventh Son makes the unfortunate mistake of trying to cram
every piece of information from the book without giving it time to breath and a
huge epic showdown between two factions is started, prepared and finished all
within the timeframe of a week. This is one cliché that was hopefully abolished
where an unlikely hero becomes as good, or better than a master who has been
training their entire lives in no time at all.
On top of this the movie also has betrayal between species
supposedly, an incredibly rushed romance plot that adds nothing to the story
and as stated earlier an entire army of powerful villains who all have less
personality traits than lines.
Some of the actors who are good in their own right fall
flatter than the pages of the book they were based on and the adaptation
wouldn’t be beloved even by fans of the series. And everyone looks as bored as
possible unless you count the times they turn into ugly CG puppets that seem to
defy the laws of physics.
But to be fair one of the positives that the movie has going
for it would be its very well handled yet still unoriginal aesthetic and set
design. Peter Jackson figured out that wide shots over fields, horses and other
medieval etc. was film gold. The same cannot be said for the costumes as while
some are unique it just looks like the actors just raided a Halloween Express
and the biggest offender was when the main character ended up in what was
literally a hoodie with some string in the front.
Another part of the movie claims to be a comedy yet the
funniest lines were spared in the trailer. Any other attempts at making the
audience laugh were forced beyond comprehension and just seemed like terrible
ad-libbing.
Seventh Son fails on almost every conceivable level and any
redeeming value to be had was lost in its terrible direction, weird casting and
is above all nothing more than a waste of time.
In an era where Fantasy and Sci-Fi movies can break into the Oscars and
be treated with a level of seriousness this movie deserves to be forgotten.
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