A 14th century Crusader returns with his comrade to a homeland devastated by the Black Plague. The Church commands the two knights to transport a witch to a remote abbey, where monks will perform a ritual in hopes of ending the pestilence.
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Thanks for the memories!
How sad is this?
Fantastic!
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
'Season of the Witch' – put simply – Lord of the Rings, it is not. It is a (modern) Nicholas Cage film. And, as any die-hard fan (and I'm including myself in that bracket) will know, his modern films don't really rate as highly as those he made in his heyday.Nicholas Cage plays... well, Nicholas Cage in a suit of armour. His natural charm and screen presence do their best to shine through as this time out he and Ron Perlman are knights returning from hacking a few dozen hordes of computer-generated barbarians to death in the Crusades. However, life in yesteryear was never destined to run smoothly and the Black Death only goes and kicks off, leaving thousands dead in whichever 'England-like' land this film is supposed to be set in.Now, you may be forgiven for thinking that a plague of epic proportions has nothing to do with a couple of battle-hardened knights. That's until the king tells them that they're charged with the task of escorting a witch across the land to be burned. Apparently, it's all her fault or something and she totally needs to be roasted in order to save the universe. Or something.Anyway, so begins the quest – the not-at-all-like-Lord-of-the-Rings quest. Nic, Ron and a few meaningless codpiece-wearing extras all trudge wearily across one grassy hill after the next, all the while defending against one computer-generated threat after the next. Um, and that's about it. It's hardly 'epic' – it's pretty much by the numbers. In the scale of things it's not that bad, but then it's not that good either. You can dip in and out of this film at your leisure and you won't really miss a thing.'Season of the Witch' is one of those films which has only one fault: its total and utter 'averageness.' You'll have seen it all before and, despite Nic and Ron doing their very best to raise it above being just another B-movie, they really can't do it with this script, plot or (not so) special effects.If you really love Nic or Ron that much, you may get something out of it. Otherwise, don't really bother. And don't get me started on Nic's haircut.
At times you see movies that have huge identity issues. Season of the Witch is one of those movies. The tone of the story is the biggest problem of the movie, as it's an odd mix of golden era Hollywood swashbuckling action and more grim horror story. Now, those two can coexist, but balancing them is a delicate act, which is something Season of the Witch doesn't manage very well. And that is a shame really, as the more grim supernatural parts of horror do work better than the more adventurous segments in the first part of the movie.With a different script, and probably with a different leads, as Cage keeps hamming it up as he always does these days, just like Pearlman, the movie could have been better. It has some nice set pieces and at places the cinematography looks very nice and bleak. But the way it all is pieced together just feels like an unbalanced mess that does what you expect it to do: fall flat on the ground.The clashing of the styles hits in from the start. It has witch hangings, which turn into b-horror clichés, where it goes to the holy land crusades, where Cage and Perlamn fight side by side cracking bad jokes, to a horrific realisation of the cruelties of war to a more grim setting of a sickness savaged land where the would be anti-heroes escort an accused witch to her judgement.The identity issues are what break the movie. It doesn't know how to pick a style and stay in it, so it just flings stuff at the viewer and hopes that something sticks. This does lead into that nothing does really stick and what could have been entertaining movie just doesn't work.
Season of the Witch (2011): Dir: Dominic Sena / Cast: Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Stephen Campbell Moore, Claire Foy, Christopher Lee: Misfire medieval mess about trials. It opens with about a million battles scenes before two knights, played by Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman have had enough of women and children dying. Eventually they are assigned to transport a witch to a monastery in order have her tried by the monks. She is blamed for the black plague that has been sweeping the land. Directed by Dominic Sena who previously made Kalifornia as well as direct Cage in the pathetic Gone in Sixty Seconds. He is backed with effective visual elements of castles and winged creatures but his actors are at the mercy of lame writing. Cage and Perlman as this buddy knight duo is laughable. They will trek this witch in a cage while allowing her to screw with their brains. They are joined by some young sap who wishes to prove himself, as well as a Priest whom the witch fears. Then there is Claire Foy cast as "The Woman." She is blamed for the plague and will spend much of the film locked up before she becomes a giant winged creature with all the intimidation of a Care Bear on acid. She is also involved in a lame "I need to know about these men who died for me" sequence in the conclusion that is just lame. Christopher Lee makes an appearance to which one hopes he was paid really well for such an embarrassment. If you thought The Sorcerer's Apprentice was a stupid career move then Cage double bills it with a film that should never be seen by anyone at any season. Score: 3 / 10
There are Two Colors that are On Screen in this "Color" Movie...Blue & Green. That's Typical of the New Millennium's Idea that Everything Needs to be "Dark" and Drained to be Cool. Yeech!Other than that, it is a Mid-Range Medieval Movie that Never Quite Achieves what it wants. The Story is Solid and The Twists are OK and the Gloomy Substitutes for the Gory in this Dirty Time of Plagues and Puss.Nic Cage and Ron Perelman and the rest of the Cast are kind of Bland but there is Enough Horror and Suspense to Plod the Movie Along in this Path of Least Resistance Film. Nothing Much is that Exciting and the Final Stand Off Between Good and Evil is Less that Remarkable.Overall, Worth a Watch for those who Watch Most Anything. But it is a Failure at Worst and what may be Worse, a Mediocre Multi-Million Dollar Mess.