[Recommendation] Seventh Son (2014)

It has been a tiring weekend at the movies. Actually, it’s been a tiring few weeks at the movies, as studios nearly always wait until the start of the year to release the projects they are less than enthused about. Ironic really, since this is also award season, and while the industry is patting itself on the back for the quality work they released at the end of last year. They are simultaneously dumping their worst material on us in the hope to recover production costs. This last weekend was tougher than most. On Saturday the 7th of February, I lost two hours of my life to Jupiter Ascending, the day after that, I lost another 102 minutes of planet time to Seventh Son.

Seventh Son is based on a novel called ‘The Spook’s Apprentice’ by Joseph Delaney, and finally arrives in our theaters after several release date changes. Did you know this was originally scheduled for February 2013? It tells a pretty familiar story about a young man called Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), a farm boy yearning for adventure, who is, you know; “The One!” The Seventh Son of the Seventh Son, which apparently makes this kid special, not that the film really bothers to explain what that actually means. And he’s only brought into the story after Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), gets his last assistant killed. Which immediately had me asking ‘if Ward was so important, why was not he already Master Gregory’s apprentice?’

Beyond the incredibly underdeveloped back story of the titular character, this is your standard Dungeons & Dragons style nonsense with lots of visual effects sequences. Complete with a tired plot involving an evil witch trying to take over the world, the aforementioned farm boy, and a sage Spook looking to pass on his teachings. Sound familiar? I don’t know about you, but a certain classic space adventure flick* released in 1977 came to mind.

edited by shiyu niu 43507166