Fantasy films are a hard genre to crack. For every Lord Of The Rings, there’s a handful of abysmal tripe (The Golden Compass, Eragon, The Seeker). The newest is Seventh Son.
The film presents a world where Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), a wizard-like figure called a Spook, hunts and destroys evil, particularly witches. Centuries ago he imprisons the evilest of them all, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), who then escapes and wreaks vengeance on humanity. Only Gregory can stop him with his new apprentice Tom (Ben Barnes) who must learn the ways of the Spook and is key to the defeat of evil.
Is Seventh Son good? No. It is a big mess. Aside from performances from loopy Bridges and snakelike Moore (both having loads of fun, with a handful of nice moments), the film is an unmemorable, messy, CGI-overloaded drag. The world is poorly developed; it’s hard to understand anything. It barely tries to be unique, riffing on other better films with a worse script. Barnes is a terribly wooden protagonist with a bad underdeveloped love interest with a bland witch.
It’s a shame that films like this can be funded when true artists like Guillermo Del Toro, a master of fantasy; have to struggle to get a dollar to his projects. Seventh Son is a forgettable waste.
