The Last Witch Hunter Review

https://youtu.be/xsuG2JUgs_8

Directed by: Breck Eisner
Written by: Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless
Starring: Vin Diesel, Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood, Michael Caine

he modern world holds many secrets, but by far the most astounding is that witches still live among us; vicious supernatural creatures intent on unleashing the Black Death upon the world and putting an end to the human race once and for all. Armies of witch hunters have battled this unnatural enemy for centuries, including Kaulder, a valiant warrior who many years ago slayed the all-powerful Witch Queen, decimating her followers in the process. In the moments right before her death, the Queen cursed Kaulder with immortality, forever separating him from his beloved wife and daughter. Today, Kaulder is the last living hunter who has spent his immortal life tracking down rogue witches, all the while yearning for his long-lost family. However, unbeknownst to Kaulder, the Witch Queen has been resurrected and seeks revenge on her killer, leading to an epic battle that will determine the survival of mankind.

It took me a while but I finally got a chance to catch this movie in theaters. It took me a while but after all of the things I wrote about this movie I wanted to make sure I put up proper review. Anyway, The Last Witch Hunter is a pretty neat movie. It’s by no means perfect and suffers from some editing and pacing issues but if you walk into the theaters with realistic expectations than you shouldn’t walk away from this movie disappointed. I wanted great mindless sci-fi action franchise in the same vein as Underworld and the Resident Evil movies. I’m not looking for overly intelligent narrative or even something fully thought out. No, instead I walked into this movie expecting some sci-fi eye candy enveloped in a moderately thought out sci-fi world. Anything more and you’d just be setting yourself up for disappointment. With that said, I had a helluva lot of fun with The Last Witch Hunter.

There are some beautiful shots of scenery in this movie and who am I kidding, this movie leans heavily on that and its effects. There are some interesting witch killing, portal spawning, murder magic mages spread thickly all over this movie and it was a good decision.  The paper thin story and acting sets this film up perfectly to for the scenery to carry you from beginning to end and there are some truly cool visual moments in this movie. Kudos to the art team because this is one gorgeous movie. The story of the Last Witch Hunter is a helluva lot of fun despite not having too much weight. This world is an established playground and since they gloss over origins and backstories we are instead allowed glimpses into this secret society and fill in a lot of the “blanks” for ourselves and discover all the cool things that Kaulder (Diesel) does and sees in a typical day.

I’d like to touch on the acting for just a moment. Michael Caine was a joy as usual but this is an atypical film for the celebrated actor. As such his appearances were brief and rightly so. I can imagine the guy was on set for a total of two weeks, grabbed his paycheck, and bounced back to the house built by Nolan. Elijah Wood has some surprisingly good comedic timing and was serviceable. I couldn’t help but feel that an actual comedian would have been a bit more fun here.  Elijah played Dolan the 37th who assists Kaulder behind the scenes in a role that’s passed on from generation to generation as an inherited role. He inherited his role from Michael Caine whome Kaulder and Dolan are trying to avenge. He also feels he owes Kaulder a debt because Kaulder saved his life once as a kid. Rose Leslie was…pretty. She plays a witch/bartender named Chloe I don’t want to say anything too bad here because I don’t want an arrow in my back. She’s a bit of a damsel in distress and phoned this one in. Her character was pretty 1 dimensional compared to others so her character didn’t require more than that.

 

That brings us to Vin Diesel himself… where do I begin? It’s hard to watch Diesel in any scene that shows his ancient past. He can’t really pull off any accents or change his mannerisms or anything you associate with the the middle ages so keeping his performance to a minimum during those scenes was a good call. When he was in the present it’s hard to discern Kaulder from Xander Cage or Dominic Toretto. He carries a sword but he pretty much behaves, speaks, and alpha’s like characters he plays in other films. Shame on you if you were expecting more than that. Kaulder himself is a pretty generic antihero. He’s immortal, rich, carries a big sword, and has a way with women that would make Bruce Wayne jealous. Outside of that there’s not much to the character. The fact that they spent so much time and effort developing this world surrounding Kaulder clearly shows their desire for a franchise.

I could easily see myself re-watching this movie. It’s fun mindless action and will be a good anchor while channel surfing when it eventually makes its way to cable. Not sure if I would load this one up on Netflix unless I have friends over who have never seen this movie but all in all I don’t regret watching this one and I hope to see if this one generates a sequel because I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Kaulder and company kicking more witch ass.

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