Sunday, January 16, 2011

Review: Season of the Witch

As I'm sure you already know, January is almost always a month made up of terrible movies; however, a good film slips through the cracks every once in a while and ends up with a January release date (Cloverfield, Nanny McPhee, and Taken). Dominic Sena's Season of the Witch is not one of them.


Nicolas Cage has played some pretty colorful characters over the years so it is never totally surprising when we see him do something like this; however, Nicolas Cage as a medieval knight just doesn't seem to work. Cage is more than awkward and less than inspired as an ex-knight of the crusade who must transport an alleged witch to an isolated monastery where a group of mystical monks will decide her fate. Ron Perlman plays Cage's tough, rugged buddy who doubles as the unfunny, comic relief.

This film misses a lot of its marks. The script has nothing going for it: it isn't witty, smart, or funny when it intends to be; it isn't even funny enough to be considered an unintentional comedy. Sure, I chuckled a few times at the inconsistancy of the script- I felt like never knew what it was going for, but nothing in this movie is so bad that it's good. Actually, it's  all just bad.

To make matters worse, almost everything else about this movie feels lifeless. As I mentioned earlier, Nicolas Cage's performance, along with the rest of the cast, feels uninspired and just makes the movie drag on and ultimately feel boring. Most of the special effects are so bad at times that I could practically see the green screen, which gets worse as the rising action leads to the all-hell-breaks-loose GCI climax. If that wasn't enough, the action is boring and choppy, which makes things even more difficult to follow, and most of the scares consist of nothing more than loud noises and quick motions.

Season of the Witch is a sad excuse for an action/adventure, mystery/suspense, fantasy/thriller, or whatever it's trying to be. Its dull, lifeless script feels even more-so with this boring presenation of a lousy product. If only there were a magical spell that could bring some life into this movie.

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