(What a waste of a good title…)
CAST: Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy, Stephen Campbell Moore, Ulrich Thomsen.
DIRECTOR: Dominic Sena
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and appropriately brief reviews of one utterly crappy movie - straight ahead…
A dear friend whom we will call “Russell Costner” (because he looks like a cross between Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner) recently learned about this blog. I refused to give him the link because I’m not sure if he’s ready for my special brand of humor. However, I did confide in him that trying to stay on schedule with these reviews - and still be able to go out drinking and dancing and throwing dinner parties - was kind of challenging.
“Russell C.” responded that I should basically tailor my reviews to the quality of the film under scrutiny. Basically, if the flick is good or above, then go ahead and write a thesis on it. If it ain’t so great, then don’t use too many words on it. Although I adore “Russell C.” and have found his advice to be life-saving more than once, I privately disagreed with him.
See, I believe all movies - like all people - have value to them. Sometimes you just have to look deeper. Just because something is flawed or seemingly uncomplicated, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend some time trying to understand it better - or give it the benefit of the doubt. That’s why you’ll find on this blog phone book-length discourses on the likes of SLIVER, POSEIDON, DEEP BLUE SEA, PROM NIGHT, GRANDMA’S BOY, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, and many more.
And believe me: the more time I spend writing lengthy movie reviews is less time I can spend doing Jell-O shots off someone’s hairy chest. Which, while fun and exhilarating, sometimes leads to Drama-With-A-Capital-D when his girlfriend comes storming across the bar to accuse me of “Trying to lure my Sammy to the dark side!”
Oh, really? Bitch, no one made him lift that T-shirt and lay on his back on the pool table. Maybe you should go down on him more.
But I digress. Again. The point is I didn’t think I’d ever watch a mainstream film that I would refuse to dissect or analyze to a reasonable degree.
Then I watched SEASON OF THE WITCH. And I realized that “Russel C.” was right: some movies are just not worth it. Giving a sardonic plot breakdown with two sentences is more than this gargantuan piece of shit deserves, but I’ll be magnanimous and do it anyway:
So, like, Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman (acting badly, both) play “crusaders” in Medieval times who somehow get roped into accompanying some possessed chick (Claire Foy) to some abbey deep in the fucked-up woods of Eastern Europe. This all happens during the Black Plague, and the geniuses running the Church think that if this chick gets exorcised, the Plague might go away.
HUH?
Anyhow, that’s more than I’m willing to say about the movie. No, scratch that… I’d like to add one more thing: this movie has CGI so awful it makes the “parasurfing” scene from DIE ANOTHER DAY look like the height of state-of-the-art realism.
I owe “Russell C.” a bottle of Tequila for this.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: I speak in all seriousness when I say you should avoid this movie like the Plague. Get it? The Plague?
Okay, that’s enough.
