Seventh Son

Sergey Bodrov is not a very famous director.  He has been around for a while actually.  Over 40 years since his first short film and about 15 full length features with some documentaries thrown in, Bodrov finally gets his first truly big banner kind of movie with Seventh Son

Seventh Son is a 3D fantasy flick that makes the cut for a one time watch.  The special effects add to the overall feel of the movie and make it that much more enjoyable that what it actually is.  There is a lot of effort in bringing Joseph Delaney’s (The Wardstone Chronicles) characters to life.

To begin with, somewhere in the distant past, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) – one of the most dangerous witches on the planet – is overpowered by and imprisoned in a deep underground prison.  He captor is a “Spook” called Gregory (Jeff Bridges) who prefers to go by the prefix “Master”.

A Spook is someone who has to deal with the deadliest of ghouls and ghasts and ghosts and of course witches.  S/he is called for help when people are possessed by one.  The objective is of course to kill these creatures of the dark.  Master Gregory also has apprentices all except one of who are presently deceased but not due to lack of training.

When his current apprentice, Billy Bradley (Kit Harrington) falls prey to Malkin, Gregory decides to find Thomas Ward (Ben Barnes).  Tom is the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son thereby giving him special powers of being able to see things in the future and deal with these creatures.  However, he has less than 15 days to do so because the blood moon has risen – which is how Malkin managed to escape in the first place.

A plot that is not necessarily fresh off the oven but not uninteresting either.  The story has the regular twists and turns that one would expect from a Dark Fantasy. I was actually a tad surprised that it has been adapted from a book because it had all the makings of a video game adaptation more than a book.

Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore are always dependable and deliver what is asked of them.  The rest of the cast is quite flat but the effects form a meatier part of this movie than performances.  Watch out for the dragons that morph in and out of human form, four handed swordsmen, huge bears, leopards and of course a massive ugly dragon to top it up all.  Probably a one-time watch for you fantasy freaks.  6 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1803464473/?ref_=tt_ov_vi