Le septième fils

I have read a few books from the Spook's Apprentice series and I can tell you with certainty that this movie is very far from the plot there. Worst than that, every decent scene in the film is in the trailer and the rest are just filling. No real fights, no real drama, the acting was abysmal, but it pales in comparison with the script, which seems to be have been written by a banker worrying he is giving the world too much. It is a horribly bad film that I advise against watching.

The books themselves are a sort of Harry Potterish thing for children, replacing Hogwarts with a grumpy fighter against the creatures of the dark and Harry with a rare "seventh son of a seventh son" that is traditionally employed in this "spook" business. There were several things that went against this series becoming very popular: first is the term "spook" which in the US was controversial due to some colloquial racial meaning, so they changed the name with which they published the book into The Last Apprentice. Then the name of the author, Joseph Delaney, which is pretty common and easy to confuse with other writers named Delaney.

However the plot of the books is easy to follow, interesting, sometimes engaging; Delaney had just as much right for fame as J.K. Rowling. Alas, this film pretty much cements his failure. Too bad.

Hollywood has of late had a lousy track record of fantasy action epics, and 'Seventh Son', which arrives just in time to close off the year, is yet another blemish to add to that list. Delayed nearly a year while its production company Legendary switched studios, this Universal release assembles A-listers Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore with 'The Chronicles of Narnia' star Ben Barnes for an expensive big- screen adaptation of the first book of Joseph Delaney's 'The Wardstone Chronicles' against tawdry sets and second-rate visual effects.

We aren't usually that critical of a film's production design, but there is just something awfully dreary about the widescreen world of Russian director Sergei Bodrov's debut English-language feature. Indeed, the only human city where any of the action takes place looks like it was rented right after the cast and crew of 'Game of Thrones' abandoned it, while the mountain fortress which principal villain Mother Malkin makes her not-so-humble abode seems like it was designed for some 1960s B-grade science-fiction movie. The ugliness of these green-screened sets is even more obvious against the occasional picturesque Canadian backdrops, which cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel ably captures to evoke a majestic 'Lord of the Rings' feel.

Alas the unattractive visuals are just one of the litany of complaints that you are likely to have. What production designer Dante Ferretti fails to accomplish in sets, visual effects designer John Dykstra also fails to make up for in post-production. Whether the oversized orcs or shape-shifting witches (Moore and her fellow consort Djimon Hounsou transform into dragons, while others transform into creatures with reptilian-like tongues or Hindu deity-like arms), the CG effects for what was once intended to be a franchise tentpole are both unimaginatively conceived and poorly executed, even more appalling when viewed in post-conversion 3D or worse on an IMAX screen.

And yet to fault its technical shortcomings seems at least a tad unfair, in particular because the movie's problems are much more fundamental. For one, despite boasting an impressive team of screenwriters including Matt Greenberg, Charles Leavitt and Steven Knight, there is hardly a story here. Without any context, we start with a younger Jeff Bridges imprisoning the Queen Witch, Mother Malkin (Moore), up in the mountains. The impending dawn of the once-a-century blood moon lends her strength to break out of her metal confines, and in an early sequence, confront her jailer Master Gregory (Bridges) and his not-so-lucky apprentice Billy (Game of Thrones' Kit Harington). When that reunion ends with Billy dead, Gregory sets out recruiting a new "seventh son of a seventh son", Thomas (Barnes), who so happens to be suffering from elliptic visions of Gregory and Malkin.

In narrative jargon, Thomas is The Chosen One, the anointed protégé who under the tutelage of Master Gregory will become his very equal and take his place among the elite group of knights who call themselves the Falcon. There is no doubt during the movie, even when his life seems to be in mortal danger, that Thomas will live to see the death of Mother Malkin and perhaps even the light of another sequel. There is also no doubt, despite Gregory's initial reservations, that Thomas will be ready within the span of just seven days to defeat the evil that Malkin possesses within her goth-like getup. And for that matter, there is no doubt that Thomas will find true love in Alice (Swedish actress Alicia Vikander), a witch whom he rescues from the town mob and who turns out to be the daughter of Malkin's younger sister.

The plotting is as straight-forward as it gets, and functions no more than to connect the numerous noisy action sequences together. There is also hardly any character to speak of, each one of them leading or supporting mere stock types that you would be familiar with from countless other such fantasy flicks. The latter is also why we feel sorry for Bridges, a fine actor who's played the grizzled veteran one too many times of late in 'R.I.P.D.' and 'The Giver' and is here trying not to sound condescending while delivering lame one-liners with a distinct twang. Moore too is an equally fine actress in her own right utterly wasted in a thankless role, and together, what chemistry the pair had in 'The Big Lebowski' is sorely missing in their first reunion since.

If the decision to cast two acclaimed actors to lend legitimacy to the project does nothing to help the film, the casting of its younger actors also fails to do it any favours. Barnes tries his best to project fresh-eyed enthusiasm, but the late decision to cast the 31- year-old actor in the role of a 17-year-old – instead of 'The Hunger Games'' Sam Claflin is ultimately a misguided one. He also shares too little chemistry with Vikander, who looks appropriately beguiling but is little much else. Barnes and Vikander are also stuck in an awkward romance which is bound to inspire some unintended giggles especially for a sequence where the two supposedly exchange loving glances while lying together in bed.

There is hardly anything fascinating about 'Seventh Son', whose title belongs better in a tongue twister than in an expensive and extravagant swords-and-dragons epic. Yes, there is good reason indeed why former studio Warner Bros had dragged its feet in releasing this, and what a relief it must have felt that it need not try to justify why it decided to do so when it already has an entire trilogy in 'The Hobbit'. No matter that the director is a two-time Academy Award nominee for his Russian films 'Prisoner of the Mountains' and 'Mongol', his Hollywood foray is an embarrassing misstep that he would no doubt want to be forgotten as soon as possible. He needn't worry; to spare yourself the agony of sitting through yet another disappointing fantasy wanna-be epic, go find any one of the other sons and just avoid the Seventh.

I can see why critics and people in general are dissing the film. I think the problem with the film, is that it's director, Sergey Bodrov has never done a film of this scope. At least, never a film with a budget of 95 million dollars.

The film is 102 minutes long. Had it been longer, I think many more "things" could have been better explained. It just seemed some of the scenes were out of sequence, or, didn't have enough detail. Had this film had Peter Jackson, or Guillermo del Toro at the helm, it would have been an entirely different film. Considering the LOTR series each had about the same budget, this film could have been so much more.

The film seemed fragmented. It reminded me of the failed film Eragon, where you suddenly go from farm boy, to instantly learning Elvish, knowing how to fight, and just "knowing" everything. We need to see the characters develop.

Now, I'm a hard core fan of this genre. I'll be the first to admit, that pairing Jeff Bridges with Julianne Moore was a great idea. While we get more background on Bridge's character than we do with other characters in the film, their performances, while quite acceptable could have been much better. Personally, I thought Bridges portrayal of Master Gregory was well executed. Again, I think the director was perhaps the main problem, reigning in their performances.

I keep seeing articles and reviews from people who've read the book, then bash the film because the film itself is so far separated from the text. I don't like to compare books to film, simply because you can go into so much more detail in a book.

I have to say it. I still enjoyed the film even though it left a lot of unanswered questions for me. If you like the fantasy series, as I do, then go into the film without preconceptions, and, enjoy it for what it is, entertainment. While it's not the best film to ever hit the big screen, it's still fun.

This is the first is a Joseph Delany trilogy "Wardstone Chronicles." Based on the book "The Spooks Apprentice" by Joseph Delaney.

The last of the protectors keeping us from the evil that witches do has a habit of having his apprentices dispatched by the opposition. So now he must reach down to the bottom of the barrel and find a seventh son three places, last apprentice. No time for training it's off to get the bad queen-witch. We go along on the adventure and encounter all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, and all things wise and wonderful.

In a movie where people and creatures have a tendency to be dispatched or ride off into the sunset, you have to wonder who will be in the sequels?

Part of the fun is recognizing the actors There is Kevin Flynn from TRON (1982) See how many actors you can find.

The Blu-Ray has: Alternate Ending Deleted/Alternate Scenes The Making of "Seventh Son" The legend and lore of the Seventh son Visual Effects Gallery.

-Seventh Son (2015) movie review: -Seventh Son is a fantasy/adventure film about the last man in an order of knights that were basically medieval Ghostbusters. He takes on a new, young apprentice who is destined for greatness and blah blah blah prophecy, blah blah blah training, blah blah blah evil threat, blah blah blah fulfil his destiny type of thing.

-The entire film is like a cliché video game complete with boss battles, side-quests, and gaining new equipment. It was not bad, but not good or anything new.

-The story is cliché and predictable as pretty much anything. I knew exactly how it would go down throughout the entire film.

-The pace is somewhat inconsistent, with a few parts that rush and a few parts that drag.

-The acting is fine. Jeff Bridges did his best imitation of himself from True Grit, which was only so-so believable. Ben Barnes did his best impression of himself as Prince Caspian, minus the accent. So he was convincing at least. Julianna Moore is the villain, and she was the best one in it.

-The characters are all cliché and offered nothing new.

-The music…. I'm going to go back to this one….

-The CGI was not as bad as the trailer, but not great. The originality the film offered in the villains was not terrible either. They just played Dark Souls and said "Hey! Let's use all of the villains!" -There are some scenes that are pretty witty, and some others that are pretty entertaining. So it was enjoyable to an extent.

-So my least favorite thing about the film was the music…. Right off the bat I noticed. Here is what happened: They were done with the editing and somebody said "Oh guys! We forgot music!" and another guy answered, "Oh crap! It's okay, just use music from Game of Thrones, Clash of the Titans, Wrath of the Titans, and Robin Hood! Problem solved!" Oh my gosh I knew every song that played. And they picked two of my favorite soundtracks to use! So totally took me out of the moment. All of the moments. All of them.

-Anyway, Seventh Son is nothing new and has some elements, like the freaking music, that make it not good. However it has some entertainment value to it, so really, if you don't care about predictability and music, Seventh Son would actually be worth watching on Nexflix.

-It is PG-13 for some light violence, scary-ish images, dealings with things like sorcery, and a random F-word. Because that existed?