50 New Movies in 100 Days: Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch

This is Nicolas Cage and  Ron Perlman as two knights in the middle ages having to fight against a witch, what could go wrong.  Well, technically many things, but surprisingly very few of them did.  It is a goofy movie filled with hilarious lines that are completely out of place and time.  It isn’t as good as Drive Angry but it is is pretty awesome.

The story starts with telling of a book that can bury witches permanently and anything else supernatural and evil.  Then we meet Damien, Cage, and Felson, Perlman, two knights who fight in the crusades and in other church missions.  They end up leaving when they realize that they have killed women and innocent children in their time.  They wander around for a while before coming to a city with the black plague.   The plague is being caused by a witch.  They end up finding out that there is one remaining book in a nearby monastery and they go there with the witch, a priest, and a couple of soldiers.  They face several hardships along the way, but end up making it to the monastery.  However, nothing is quite as it seems, and there is a larger plan in place.

The acting is what you’d expect, Perlman and Cage are pretty good and hilarious.  It is Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage in the film like in Drive Angry.  Perlman is definitely a fun actor to watch, his performance was somewhere along the lines of Hellboy and Mutant Chronicles, playing the tough guy and kicking lots of butt.  This is obviously not a film about the acting though with having Cage as a leading man, and none of the rest of the performances were anything of note, and even Cage and Perlman weren’t anything special, they are just very recognizable names.

Directing wise, it seems like a mid-level blockbuster, they had some money to make the film, and there were points in time when there was solid special effects, but maybe because it isn’t like Transformers where everything is special effects, it didn’t seem to rely as heavily on them.  Perlman and Cage both looked fairly out of place in the time period of the film.  Some of the other actors seemed to carry that role much better, but when it is Cage being Cage, you don’t watch it for the authenticity of the piece.

This is a fun film that got universally destroyed by the critics, sitting at 10% on rotten tomatoes, but I think that has more to do now with people liking to use Cage as a punch line for jokes than for anything else.  This was a pointless, mindless film that had some fun action, and slightly clever storyline, and dialog from the year 2011 set back in 1345 or so.  It isn’t meant to be anything more than pointless popcorn flick, and when viewed as that, it really isn’t that bad a film.  There isn’t anything that stands out as special, but there isn’t anything laughably bad, such as in Wickerman.

Critical Grade: D

Entertainment Grade: B-

Overall Grade: C-

The Mutant Chronicles

The Mutant Chronicles

This is a fun action sort of film based loosely off of a video game.  It is better then most video game based films and there is some acting talent in this film.  It is a fun romp of sorts, and the acting talent is surprisingly big named, even though the performances aren’t anything to write home about.

The idea of the film is that, in the future, there are only a limited number of controlling powers, which are constantly at war.  At some point in time “The Machine” was unearthed and the seal broken on it.  This then unleashes the mutants onto the earth, and a crack team goes to try and seal it as the mutants take over humanity, capturing the humans and changing them.  A team, basically on a suicide mission, goes to try and destroy “The Machine” and they meet many “puzzles” and traps on their way as they make their way to the heart of “The Machine”.  It is a pretty straight forward plot, no major twists, but it is an entertaining plot, and for being based on a video game, the fact it has a real plot is pretty impressive.  It also does a good job blending the business factions and religious factions and political factions.

The acting is what kind of surprises you when you see this film.  A film that stars Ron Perlman, Thomas Jane, and John Malkovich you’d probably peg for an action sort of film, but not this type.  The performances aren’t anything special, but because they do have acting talent between them, it isn’t nearly as shoddy as you see in your typical video game adaptation, and it helps that Uwe Boll didn’t direct it as well.  Devon Aoki does a decent job in her role and definitely adds a pretty face to the film.  Other then that, the names in the film aren’t all that big, but to have three pretty big names that can draw in some people just by themselves, is impressive for this type of film.

Visually Simon Hunter does a solid job with this film.  Much of the film is shot underground, where “The Machine” is hidden and that means that it is very dark throughout, but it is a post apocalyptic sort of world, so that works because even above ground it isn’t all that bright.  The CGI for “The Machine”, etc. is solid.  It won’t blow you away, but it doesn’t distract from the film.  Basically, it just works for the film, whether it is the CGI or the visuals in general.  It has a very gloomy feel, and being that you know it is based on a video game and has very few twists you can probably guess how it ends, but the gloominess works throughout the film and works with the story.

It is just a fun sort of film.  Critically it isn’t all that impressive, but that doesn’t matter all that much.  What matters is that you can just watch this film, turn you mind off, and enjoy it.  it also doesn’t have anything to distract you from the film, it is just straight forward with solid visuals and acting, normally the acting is so bad that you can’t enjoy this sort of film at all (Bloodrayne, Postal, Doom, and Alone in the Dark).

Entertainment Grade: B

Critical Grade: D

Overall Grade: C