SEVENTH SON Review

With it being the time of year it is one knows exactly what they are getting into when buying a ticket to Seventh Son. It is as simple as that, really. Even after only reviewing films legitimately for a couple of years it has become something of a tradition to walk into a sci-fi/fantasy film that has for one reason or another experienced production issues and been delayed because of it and this year begins no differently as Seventh Son is clearly looking to continue an unwanted trend that the likes of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and I, Frankenstein have made customary as of late. A perfectly average fantasy film within the constraints of the fantasy genre, Seventh Son suffers only from being rather boring in spots with not enough narrative umph to push it towards what feels like the obligatory two-hour mark. It is a movie you know and recognize before it even begins and once it does you recognize every beat because it has seemingly pulled something from every other movie of the same vein. The music is reminiscent of any Hans Zimmer score you've heard over the past few years or any of its multiple imitators after The Dark Knight and it feels like they took the backlot of any number of films set in medieval times and re-used it with no updates or customizations. The stars, Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore, do what they can without any kind of character development and Bridges, more than anyone else, seems to have taken this on more for a paycheck while delivering a performance so ridiculous he seemed to be testing the limits of just how far his credentials might get him. It is both hilarious at times and incomprehensible at others. I couldn't tell whether or not the pedigreed actor was really trying to develop an original character at first, but by the time he's fighting his third CG monster I imagined any kind of effort that might have been sparked from reading the formulaic script was all but dead and he was just having some fun. I can't really defend the film and there's no reason to. I had a fine enough time with it as I knew what I was getting into and it aligned with those expectations. No more. No less.