[Spoilers]The Last Witch Hunter

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Ancient History
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[Spoilers]The Last Witch Hunter

Post by Ancient History »

Also known as Yet Another Vin Diesel Movie, I just got back from seeing this and... I'm on the fence.

It is supremely silly. So much so that I have trouble comparing it to other films. It's like the urban fantasy equivalent of Chronicles of Riddick or Van Helsing. It's got an aesthetic vibe somewhere between John Carpenter's Vampires and Constantine. There's not a lot of memorable dialogue, there's not a lot of memorable scenes, the scripting is supremely predictable and the CGI is not just bog-standard, but a lot of the sequences are downright familiar, like they were re-using the swarming bits from Green Lantern and the Transformers.

And yet...it's kinda fun. I have a lot of trouble defining why that is, except that it's damn clear that Vin Diesel is having fun in his role. In fact, I would say that while the script is plodding and predictable to an almost absurd degree and the big CGI action sequences are so formulaic that they might almost have been dropped in from any other movie, and the worldbuilding makes the early Harry Potter films look like the Lord of the Ring films, the actors all dedicated to their roles, the scenery and costuming is all lovingly crafted, and there are some great visuals in this film. There's a lot of technical excellence on display here.

Just not the writing.

I mean, I groaned and laughed and smiled at some of this. It's a movie destined for late-night television, with hot wings and soft pretzels warm from the oven and cold root beer and your friends over. You could double-feature this with Season of the Witch. It's kind of a great bad movie in that respect. They even do the sword-slung-over-the-back thing where you can't actually draw it. Elijah Wood is a little shit throughout. Michael Caine steals the fucking movie with one line, which is pretty much the best and only memorable line in the entire film.

I suspect that it's going to, if not bomb, then not do as well as is hoped. Sad, but probably understandable - it really is just a slightly better-looking version of Van Helsing. Or maybe that's doing it a disservice, because Vin Diesel is actually having a fun time in this movie. Yes yes, he's playing the immortal witch-hunting badass, and he doesn't go in for Keanu Reeves levels of effort to make it look like he can do any of the shit that makes people scared spitless of him. But most of the time with these movies the immortal is some mopey asshole bitching and whining about immortality...but Vin Diesel plays it a bit more like Highlander. He bangs stewardesses. We don't actually get to see it, but maybe something in the director's cut.

I almost think that one of the saving graces for this film is that it is so comfortable in its role. It's like warm porridge that's just right. You're still eating fucking porridge, but it has yet to congeal and it isn't going to slide down your throat like lava either.
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Post by Stahlseele »

Vin Diesel is the perfect Action Movie Actor.
He is a bit of a Nerd himself and has fun being the big ham.
Let us not kid ourselves, all of the Vin Diesel Movies are mediocre at best.
But we still watch them because it's Vin fucking Diesel having fun doing stupid shit and looking awesome while doing it as well ^^
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Post by Eikre »

Reportedly, Diesel's role in this movie is literally an import of his favorite D&D character.

I saw it on Thursday. The first half of the movie is a fun stroll through the world and its various apparatus, and in the second half they seem to realize they had a plot to wrap up and kinda just dust it out with whatever conveniences they had laying around.

My chief letdown: Kaulder's battle phrase is "by iron and fire." I was waiting all movie for his witchy friend to ignite his sword with an incantation of the phrase in its original Latin, and then he'd repeat his version and land the killing blow against the antagonist. Never happened!
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