Il settimo figlio

Set in medieval times in Europe somewhere, "Seventh Son" brings us back to a time when supernatural beings like witches, ghosts, ghasts and the like wreak terror on the countryside. The people depend on a special knight called the "Spook" to fight these creatures and restore peace.

Master Gregory is the last spook and he is getting on in age. In his last big fight with the grand witch Mother Malkin, he lost his latest apprentice Billy. Gregory searches for another "seventh son of a seventh son" to take his place.

His quest leads him to the farm of the Wards. As the young impulsive Tom heeds the Spook's call, will he be up to the task of becoming the new Spook before Mother Malkin fully regains her powers by the night of the blood moon? Or will Tom's falling for the charms of pretty Alice distract him from his destiny?

Cut down to its basic storyline, you would see a very common basic plot in many an adventure film: an old master training an heir-apparent to his position. This film takes that plot and brings into it fantastic monsters in action and teenage romance in bloom.

Ben Barnes plays Tom Ward. Barnes first gained attention as Prince Caspian in the Narnia films, though his career did not really fly too much. He takes another stab at stardom with yet another action fantasy with this one. Already a adult man, Barnes seemed too old for the character he is supposed to play. Anyhow, he still has a youthful mien to pull it off. I think he was cast so that a romance angle can be developed as well.

Jeff Bridges plays Master Gregory. He is at his hammy best here and he looks like he had a good time filming this. In fact, Bridges felt like he just reprised his role in last year's "RIPD", where he was a senior ghost policeman training a new recruit. Bridges had some witty ripostes which added the requisite humor to the proceedings.

Julianne Moore goes all campy playing Mother Malkin with evil relish and glee. She gets to wear more witchy-chic than Maleficent and she seemed to be having a field day with this over-the-top character, much unlike the more serious and quiet ones she is more known for. In addition, she and her coven of powerful witches (played by Antje Traue, Djimon Hounsou, Jason Scott Lee, among others) get to transform into dragons and similarly fantastic beasts, thanks to neat and nifty computer- generated special effects.

This film is based on the young adult novel "The Spook's Apprentice" written by Joseph Delaney. Unlike the atmospheric creepy book it was based on, the film is makes it more of an action fantasy for cinematic verve. Tom and Alice in the book are both pre-teens. The witch characters did not fit their descriptions in the book as well. They did not turn into animals, for one. In fact, one of the side characters, the deformed humanoid Tusk, even shifts over from evil in the book to good in the film.

The visual effects were hit and miss, some (like the creature transformations) were impressive and seamless, but some (like the conflagrations) looked old-fashioned and garishly fake. Book fans may be disappointed by the major deviations from the original tale. Those who are unfamiliar with the book though will be entertained, but will definitely feel that the story being told by director Sergey Bodrov follows a tired and very familiar formula. 6/10.

I'm afraid after many delays and with a February release date in the US, this would flop. I would understand it in a way. It looks like a cheap B-movie. And a B-movie it is: offers nothing new, nothing special, it exists only to entertain. And you know what? I LOVE that. I'm THAT kind of person.

Despite it is based on a book, the story is so average it hurts. And while the characters are also clichéd, at least they have some flesh, thanks to the actors and the director.

It has some nice monster action set pieces and the pace moves in a good fashion. While its production cost is nowhere to the likes of a Hobbit movie, the effects are great and I was very surprised that the 3D actually worked.

My advise: If you want an experience like the Hobbit or the Harry Potter movies, don't watch this. But if you like fantasy movies like Willow or Dragonheart (and maybe Stardust), give it a chance.

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 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.

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.