Even though Vin Diesel is earnest and trying hard, he cannot help this B-grade adventure/fantasy which also works like a whodunit without thrills. It is apparent that Caine and Wood are just cashing their pay cheque. Diesel says in the course of the film, “You know what I am afraid of? Nothing.” There is enough CGI and elaborate set pieces, prominently featuring scorpion and beetle-like creatures, but they fail in the face of an essentially banal script. When asked about women branded as witches and burnt at stake, Kaulder’s memorable reply is, “Salem was wrong.” Really, Diesel? Thanks for letting us know. Harper) that it confuses and bores you at the same time. The film has such a convoluted script (Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Melissa Wallack, D.W. There is also the Forbidden Romance with dreamwalking witch Chloe (Game of Thrones’ Rose Leslie). The only silver lining of this event is that Caine gets to sleep through the film in a magic-induced coma (lucky so-and-so). His Dolan no 36 (Michael Caine) is about to retire when he is cursed and interrogated by the most lethal witch ever, Belial (Olafur Darri Olafsson, looking so second string that you wonder this is the best the dark side could muster). Even though the film is full of witch folklore and hokum, it fails to grasp. He is the ‘weapon’ of a church order and is handled by priests who are called Dolans. He has been at it for 800 years and has destroyed covens and imprisoned a lot of bad witches. That is, see him in his usual v-necked tees, jeans and a bald pate. So, when the rest of the action takes place in today’s day and time, you are glad to see him again. What you remember about that sequence is that Diesel has a lot of hair, a lot. Before she died, she cursed Kaulder with immortality. Sometime in the 14th century, Diesel’s Kaulder went head-to-head with the witch queen (a lot of ill-advised CGI)and killed her.
The good, the bad, the hairy: Vin Diesel sports so much hair in the film, it seems he is wearing a bear. He instead acts like their kindly uncle, putting their mess straight and sending them away with a flea in their ear. In his spare time, he is supposed to kill witches. In this film, our immortal Vin Diesel gets to call Michael Caine ‘kid’, has Elijah Woods as something of a ‘hey you’ and beds a string of comely stewardesses. There are perks to being an immortal who has walked the earth for 800 years.
Cast: Vin Diesel, Michael Caine, Elijah Wood, Rose Leslie
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