Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? No.
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? If you like fantasy.
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 103 minutes (~1.75 hours)
“Seventh Son” is a fantasy film based on a novel, the “The Spook’s Apprentice.” It follows the quest of a monster hunting novice to rid the world of the queen of witches. It stars Ben Barnes (Thomas Ward), Jeff Bridges (John Gregory), Julianne Moore (Mother Malkin), and Alice Vikander (Alice Deane).
“Seventh Son” begins with a rather interesting premise, that the main character is the seventh son of a seventh son, and hence is special in some way. This swiftly becomes an unanswered mystery, because it’s never firmly established why this is important. This becomes a recurring flaw in the film, interesting concepts and ideas that are never fully explained.
Highlights
Julianne Moore brings life to Mother Malkin
Honestly, there’s not much character or depth to Mother Malkin, the antagonist of the film. She’s got the flimsiest of relationships to one of the protagonists, and it’s not quite clear what her master plan is. Yet Julianne Moore turns Mother Malkin into a fairly tragic figure, forced into her role because of the cards that life has dealt her, simply from her delivery and reactions. You actually feel sorry for her, although you still wouldn’t root for the villainess.
Good visual effects
Tom and Gregory certainly live up to their jobs as monster hunters, and fight a smorgasbord of different fantasy creatures over the film. Their fantastic battles are brought to life with detailed digital effects as well as well-choreographed battle scenes. The film never lets you forget that you’re watching a fantasy world thanks to the SFX.
Letdowns
Jeff Bridges only exhibits one expression
And that would be disdainful shouting. Every single line is delivered like this. I understand that John Gregory would be a jaded, suspicious Spook (the film’s temr for monster hunter), but surely some range or variety would help? It’s like he’s perpetually stuck in this mode, showcasing this one aspect of the character, because there’s so little characterisation to the Spook that he can’t behave any other way.
Ben Barnes gives a flat performance
As sincere as Tom might be, Ben Barnes doesn’t seem to react with plausibility to the things that are happening around him. He’s great as an action film star, but any more depth just fizzles out on scream. There’s no layering, no emotions in the way he acts, resulting in very forced, hollow interactions with his co-stars.
Not enough exposition
Things happen but you don’t know why. And if you’re unclear of the motivations or set-up for the event, why would it have any impact on you? The problem is that there’s not enough clarity in the explanations, nor emphasis on what we should be paying attention to.
Revelations come without reactions
Another glaring problem is that whenever critical pieces of information are revealed, say with regards to a character’s parents, all that happens is a nod and acknowledgement, and off they go on their next adventure. There’s no time to breathe or process all these reveals, no time to show how the characters deal with rather catastrophic new information in their lives, and no time to let us empathise with the disaster that has struck the characters. Without reaction time, it just becomes a series of emotionless fights.
“Seventh Son” is a rather run-of-the-mill fantasy movie, which is a pity because it contained all the ingredients to be the next fantasy hit. It lacks emotions, and because of that, it becomes a giant video game sequence rather than a story that we can get behind. It’d probably be better if you read the book before watching the movie.
“Seventh Son” opens in cinemas 1 January, 2015 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo Singapore.
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