Review:
"Seventh Son"
Release Date: Feb. 6, 2015
Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 120 minutes Jeff Bridges mercifully completes the ill-advised “Mentor” trilogy he began with R.I.P.D. and The Giver with the long-delayed Seventh Son, a less-than-magical medieval fantasy epic that’s based on the YA book “The Spook’s Apprentice” by Joseph Delaney. Bridges is the spook charged with ridding the land of witches; Ben Barnes is his apprentice, a position he secures because he happens to be the seventh son of a seventh son. Not sure why, but OK. Anyway, Bridges has a week to train Barnes before a blood moon gives Julianne Moore’s witch the powers she needs to cause all sorts of mayhem. Director Sergei Bodrov gives us what we expect from Seventh Son: prolonged training sequences during which Bridges berates Barnes; fights with shape-shifting foes who kick Barnes’ butt; and a potentially dangerous love interest designed to get Barnes hot, bothered, and confused. Barnes undergoes his transformation from farmhand to spook with a straight face. Not Bridges. He’s in full R.I.P.D. “I’ve got my Oscar and, dammit, I’m going to do my own thing and don’t get in my way” mode. Wearing white shoulder-length hair and a long pointed beard, and affecting a booming Southern drawl, Bridges marches through Seventh Son looking like Terry Gilliam impersonating a hippie-ified Col. Sanders in a Monty Python medieval fantasy parody. At least Bridges is a source of fun. Everything else about Seventh Son feels labored, from screenwriter Matt Greenberg’s workmanlike treatment of his source material to Sergei Bodrov’s adequate direction to the occasionally mediocre special effects that initially held up the film’s release. “The Spook’s Apprentice” is the first in author Joseph Delaney’s “Wardstone Chronicles” series. Seventh Son, though, doesn’t merit another cinematic foray into the supernatural with Bridges and his apprentice spook. Robert Sims Aired: Feb. 5, 2015 Web site: http://seventhson.legendary.com/ |
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