Seventh Son- Review

The seventh, the heavenly, the chosen one...

It isn't often, but sometimes I have to put my foot down and simply call it like I see it. To be blunt, I think that people are wrong about the movie Seventh Son. Granted, it's not a groundbreaking cinematic epic like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but it is a solid piece of high-fantasy fiction in its own right. In fact, I almost have to wonder if audiences at large saw the same film I did.

While I am aware that Seventh Son is an adaptation of the novel series The Spook's Apprentice (known as The Last Apprentice here in the US) I have not read any of those books. After watching this flick I will admit that I am now quite interested in giving the source material a thorough glance. If anything else I would say that makes this a success in some regard.

Of course I don't think movie-going audiences are truly the ones to blame for Seventh Son's recent box office flop. I just find a portion of the reviews from mainstream outlets I've seen to be somewhat unfair to the film, or just outright missing the point of what this story essentially is. With middling to even somewhat nasty reviews, it's no wonder potential ticket buyers avoided Seventh Son like the plague. The lackluster marketing also didn't help matters either, nor did its close to one year delay to being released in theaters. Anyone that may have wanted to watch this movie probably didn't know it was out or that it even still existed.

It honestly pains me a bit to see a decent work like this suffer due to so many extenuating circumstances. Perhaps it may be my own desire to see something/anything halfway good during this cinema dry spell, but I really dig Seventh Son. As a tabletop RPG fan, I couldn't help but see the movie as a love-letter piece that's equally meant to open the world of Spooks to a much wider audience, as well as hearken back to the old-school D&D type adventures of yore.

Years ago one of the most powerful of the dark witches, Mother Malkin, was imprisoned underground by the spook John Gregory. Only with the coming of the centennial event known as "The Blood Moon" does Mother Malkin gain the strength to finally break free of her confines. Upon her return she assembles a cadre of witches and warlocks from the land so that they may smite the unsuspecting human kingdoms in a hostile takeover. John Gregory is still alive though and training a new apprentice (the seventh son of the seventh son) to help end Mother Malkin's evil once and for all. Can Gregory and his apprentice Tom stop Malkin in time, or is the world about to fall to the reign of witches?

I will be the first to admit that Seventh Son's story isn't exactly original. We've seen this plot dozens, if not hundreds of times before, and Seventh Son doesn't really do anything too terribly bold to set itself apart from those like it. On the other hand though, what we have here is a story that feels wholly familiar to those like myself who love a simple fantasy adventure with a clear and obvious goal. Evil witch queen sits atop an ominous mountain, and is preparing to wreak havoc across the land. Stop her before that can happen. It doesn't get more straight forward than that, and Seventh Son doesn't waste too much time in getting the cast of characters together to embark on their quest to thwart evil. Sometimes an easy to digest plot is all a tale really needs in order to be fun and entertaining.

This is perhaps one of the biggest elements I think evades most of Seventh Son's critics. This movie is in essence a classic D&D campaign. From the moment I saw Gregory step onto the screen I've read/seen numerous tabletop tales of players having a character like him in a game. The overall plot practically screams homage to fantasy games of the mid-eighties, and I absolutely love the old-school imagery it evokes. Hell, at one point Gregory even refers to a ghostly figure (known as a "Ghast") as a "Level 2 Creature." If that line doesn't outright directly declare exactly what kind of tone and audience this film is aiming for than I don't know what does. That isn't to say that it's somehow the greatest of D&D style flicks, but it's certainly leagues better than the abysmal official D&D movie of the 90's.  

Where Seventh Son's truest strength lies though is not really with its narrative, but within its characters and its world. John Gregory is a fun mentor character who comes across as equally eccentric and badass. His character introduction is one of the most entertaining aspects of the film, and sets the tone of not only his character but that of the entire movie very early on. To put it into perspective, John Gregory's opening fight with the local guard involves him dodging attacks while drinking from a tankard, not spilling a drop in the process. The scene invokes a lot of similarities to "The Drunken Master" trope, with actor Jeff Bridges injecting an effective amount of charm and charisma. The humor feels legit, and it sets up not only Gregory as a fun character to watch, but that the world this story takes place in as a fun world to observe. Character interaction is essentially the life blood with which the movie thrives and delivers with gusto.

Is it just me, or does Jeff Bridges look like he would make a totally awesome Madivh from Warcraft?

Veteran actors such as Jeff Bridges and Julian Moore (former The Big Lebowski co-stars) share plenty of screen time with younger lesser known actors like Ben Barnes and Alicia Vikander, all the while displaying plenty of chemistry with each other. Special praise I will say does go to the likes of Moore and Bridges, due to how much they clearly invest themselves into their roles. These two lovingly ham it up for the camera, and I couldn't help but smile at the obviously fun time they're having. Julianne Moore is deliciously evil as Mother Malkin (sporting evil eye-liner and black feather coat) making each scene she's in feel like a GM from a D&D game concocting the most evil character they can conceive. Jeff Bridges got into some very impressive shape for the role of Gregory and even whips out some wicked choreography for a man his age. Even the likes of Ben Barne's performance as Tom is memorable. He sarcastically quips about his situation in the story, much in the same way a player would in a tabletop RPG. I would be remiss too if I didn't mention the glorious Antje Traue (who was the incredibly badass Faora in Man of Steel) turns up an equally badass performance as the witch Bony Lizzie. A (totally not a half-orc) character named Tusk is also present, and serves of as one of the film's best running gags that again, isn't all too dissimilar from a typical D&D game.

I'll also admit that I am a bit of a sucker for Seventh Son's core concept. The major driving point of the narrative is that John Gregory (and by extention Tom as his apprentice) are what is commonly known as a "Spook" in this fantasy setting. Spooks are essentially this world's exorcists/monster hunters (think of something like Witchers from The Witcher games) and they require a certain criteria in order to exist. Each spook is a seventh son of a seventh son, which grants them unique abilities such as being able to see ghosts, understand magic, or glean into future events. They train themselves in various ways to fight back against the dark forces at work in the land, and pass their knowledge on to the next generation of seventh sons. It's all a very cool idea to me, but then again I'm sometimes easily impressed.

One area where I'm not easily impressed though is special effects. The abundant use of CGI in Seventh Son does leave quite a bit to be desired, as a lot of it is so apparent that it almost looks like the actors are having to face down against PS2 quality cutscene character models at certain points. Maybe back in the early 2000's this would have been acceptable, but in 2015 there's pretty much no excuse for things to look this bad. Thankfully the overall designs of the creatures make up for their lack of visual polish, by being iconic and inventive to some extent. It isn't all bad though as there are a lot of actual sets and on-location filming bits that at least make the world the characters inhabit feel somewhat real. Costuming is fantastic with Gregory looking like he jumped right out of a D&D game. As a quick aside, I would absolutely love to have Radu's (played by Djimon Hounsou) coat from this movie! It's easily one of the most Castlevania-esque coats I think I've ever seen in a motion picture. If anything else, it's just so sad to see a movie that was nearly delayed by a year have such a rough looking final cut.

Musically Seventh Son isn't all that great. Even though Marco Beltrami's score is decent, it isn't in any real notable way memorable. The opening theme is competent, but the overall composition just sort of fades into one big soundscape. While it is never unpleasant to listen to, I would never say that anything stood out to me in such a way as draw a positive reaction. To be quite honest, I feel like an almost divine opportunity was missed here by not using Iron Maiden's incredibly awesome track 'Seventh Son of a Seventh Son' for this movie. Perhaps they couldn't afford the rights to use it, but if there was ever a time, this would have been it.

Overall Seventh Son isn't a bad movie like most of the internet would have you believe. It isn't perfect by far, nor do I see it as a cult classic like Krull, but if you're looking for a fun, old-school fantasy adventure, you can could do far worse than something like Seventh Son. I don't think this is the winter dry-spell talking here either with me. I truly do think this is a legitimately good flick. If anything else it really just could have used little bit more love from it's studio, and in all honestly, from us as an audience.

Positive Factors

• Straight-to-the-point plot that's very evocative of the fun old-school D&D style campaigns.
• Solid cast all having a great deal of fun with their characters.
• A pretty cool concept for the world and some of its characters are at play here. 
• Great costumes and nice sets make the world feel pretty tangible at points.

Negative Factors

• Lackluster special effects. These aren't even good by mid-2000's standeards.
• There is a score, but pretty much none of it is memorable.

Final Rating: Splenderiffic!