Season of the Witch follows the story of Behman (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) as they renounce their stature as church knights and end up taking a suspected witch to a monastery in an effort to end the plague.
The opening to the film is full of promise as Behman and Felson clear out many enemies of the church during the holy wars of the Crusades, but as the film progresses there is a distinct air of mediocrity about the whole experience. The film itself has a very promising premise. After all, how many movies focus on the evils of witchcraft? The film asks us to believe that Anna (the escorted girl) may have redeeming qualities, when it is fully known from her first moment on the screen that she is a bona fide witch. She does not seem to cause much danger, and is simply laughable (in all her incarnations)
The premise is definitely intriguing at first, but slowly becomes deplorable as the movie progresses. The film's climax renders much of the movie irrelevant asking the viewer to basically renounce anything they have learned along the journey they had agreed to undertake by buying a ticket. Cheap looking special effects further distract from what began as a somewhat interesting idea. Any action before the end sequences are limited to the crossing of a bridge (typically a 2 minute scene dragged on for eternity in this film) and the attack of demonic animals. While this would not be an issue if the story had an sort of weight whatsoever, it is disappointing that such a good idea was completely wasted on such mediocrity.
The ending will be a major let down as Cage befalls the same fate he has befallen in every movie for the past 2 years, but this time it's due to an attack from a mythical creature.
It's a real shame that Season of the Witch is not very good. It's not horrible, but it's not good either. Simply a very mediocre start to 2011.
Heres hoping things get better from here.
4.5/10 stars
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