Le Dernier des Templiers

"Season of the Witch" was a hotly anticipated release for me, even though the mid-January release date and the heap of poor reviews were suggesting I should give it a miss. I'm very aware that some Hollywood attempts at historical movies can be appalling, but there is always hope that you will witness something rather special.

So I stuck to my guns and went to see it at the cinema in all its big screen glory. I'm glad to say that I was not disappointed and would have happily sat through an extra half an hour (the film only runs for 95 minutes).

Although it is far from being a classic, "Season of the Witch" fares better than most with good performances from three of the lead actors, Nic Cage, Ron Perlman and Claire Foy. Furthermore, the action is paced nicely throughout the story, keeping the tension levels and the viewer's interest high from start to finish.

The scenery is also used to excellent effect, helping to evoke the danger and despair of the period. The scenes set amongst the squalor of the villages helps to convey the desperate conditions that many people were living in. This helps give "Season of the Witch" a sense of realism that it occasionally lacks elsewhere.

The film makes a small attempt at ridiculing the religious ideals of the time but it's neither here nor there. It's simply an excuse to take the viewer to the dark depths that pervaded 14th century Europe.

On the downside, the special effects aren't very special, if you'll excuse the pun, and the dialogue occasionally borders on the cheesy but all in all, the film manages to succeed at delivering what the viewer wants - the fantasy of swords and sorcery, and ultimately the battle between good and evil.

For fans of the genre, this is a must see. For others, "Season of the Witch" won't give you a breathtaking viewing experience but it won't hurt either. I'd recommend that it is certainly worth a rental.

Nic Cage is becoming the master of these kinds of movies. I'm not talking supernatural thrillers, I'm talking films that themematically start out a certain way and then flip in to the land of complete crap somewhere along the way. (The recent film "Knowing" springs to mind as an example) As the film progressed, I thought it was interesting, albeit far darker then I was expecting. By the end, the story spins off to freaky land and beyond. A movie you think could be directed towards exploring religious fanaticism or even faith itself instead spins in to a supernatural clusterflub of demons and stupidity. The ending and terrible direction absolutely ruins what was a pretty good first two-thirds of a movie. What makes this twice as bad is the fact that it's a "journey" film, meaning that everything that was set up leads to the resolution. In this case, the resolution is nonsensical and unsatisfying and negates just about anything good about the first two-thirds of its running time.

I went into this film with a relatively open mind, knowing I'd never seen a Cage film (shocker) in its entirety and neglecting to look at any reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised. For the most part it's well acted, Perlman played a blinder as Cage's sidekick and Cage himself was quite good too. It was good to see MisFits star Robert Sheehan in a starring role, and the writing wasn't bad either, aside from the odd cheesy line. As far of the story goes, it works, although some of the aspects (such as Cage's motivation for going on the journey in the first place) seem a little far fetched, it's difficult to understand that Perlman's character in particular would go to such lengths for something which only affects Cage, perhaps a more developed background of the two knight's may have helped. The special effects, although in my opinion at times rather unnecessary, are pretty good, and I think the atmosphere of England suffering from the plague was recreated very well, except for the plague suffers seemed to look a little extreme.

I would have scored the film higher, except for that I feel it is very much aimed at quite a small audience, if you don't like the themes this film explores, you won't like it. The film could also have been longer (at 1h34m including a 10m credit sequence) I feel certain things (such as the Cage/Perlman background) could have been developed further to provide a more well-rounded film. Still worth a watch though, not as bad as people are saying.

I am really wondering why is this movie rated so poorly. Yes, it isn't a movie which would be a surprise and something new. Season of the witch is a movie that will be just perfect for anyone who wants to fill his/her Saturday afternoon in warm couch with beer/hot tea and snacks.

Atmosphere of the movie is really nice, I liked the factor of paranoia which slowly gets into minds of main characters. Movie tempo unwraps in best possible way, not too slow and not too fast, and it will keep you in the center of action and happenings all of the time. Pure fun in my opinion! Characters aren't elaborated to some detail levels, but just enough for you to like and know them. Music in the movie, I don't know was it something wrong with me, but now when I try to remember the music - I just can't! Was it because the music wasn't there, or it was really bad, or I was in a weird mood? Don't know!

All in all a good movie with good tempo and plenty of fun, I would recommend it. Oh yes, and it has a cool little twist at the end, a bit naive and without much sense maybe, but I loved it since I didn't expect it.

Season of the witch was a far better film than critics and fellow moviegoers led me to believe. The story is about Cage and Pearlman teaming up to take a witch to a castle where she will be put on trial. Chaos and terror ensue as they treck the mountainside and forest. The film depicts the times very well...and most the accents aren't that bad. But the thing i wasn't expecting was to see Cage actually put some effort into his role. Instead of woodenly walking through the film with terrible hair, Cage shows some true emotion and his hair ain't half bad. Cage is hit or miss, sometimes he's good ("Bad Lieutenant"), sometimes he's bad ("The Knowing"). I think Cage gets an A for effort. It's no his best acting but it's an improvement. Pearlman is great as the sidekick/friend and gets most of the good lines. The special effects are kinda lame and the film drags in certain spots, but overall "Season of the witch" is a decent thriller with some cheesy dialouge. This movie isn't bad as everyone makes it out to be. If you have low expectations like I did, you'll probably get a lot more enjoyment out of it.

Oh, and the priest named De Balzak...pretty hysterical name.