“Season of the Witch,” a thriller-action movie featuring Nicolas Cage (“National Treasure”) and Ron Perlman (“Hellboy”), sadly fails to meet the audience’s expectations with a clichéd storyline, extreme predictability and distasteful gruesomeness. Furthermore, the movie is coarsely made, paying no respect to careful editing.
The movie opens with the hanging of witches, a scene that sets the dark tone of the movie. “Season of the Witch” is a classic story of crusaders saving humanity from the curse of some evil force. At the outset, the two disillusioned crusaders, Behmen (Cage) and his pal Felson (Perlman) are deserting the Church after fighting countless bloody wars and murdering many innocent people in the name of God. But what’s waiting for them back home is the terrible Black Plague, believed to be a curse cast by the black witch. Recaptured by the Church, Behman and Felson are forced on a treacherous journey to escort a young girl, the accused witch, to a faraway monastery to destroy her power and save the world.
Such is the storyline that serves as the bible for almost all action-hero movies. The only problem with copying a template, though, is the lack of creativity, which is the main defect that plagues this movie. Nothing is new, and the movie is so predictable that the audience in the cinema was constantly muttering lines before the actors themselves did. We couldn’t help but admit that this is an unsuccessfully mundane exploration into the theme of heroes, crusaders, knights, gods and witches.
Other than sporadic humor, the whole movie portrays the journey as a dark, hard struggle between the escorts and the witch girl. The escorts are attacked, naturally, and director Dominic Sena surely intends to excite the crowd with some graphic fighting scenes. Yet again, action is just average in this movie, and the suspense built in the film is a yawn. In a word, the movie is simply not that thrilling.
Not even a sickening depiction of the Black Plague spices up the plot. The dying and the dead all bear gross, monstrous appearances that outrageously exaggerate the real symptoms of the bubonic plague. The only thrill you’ll get from the visual is the turning in your stomach.
However, what is most unacceptable about this movie is the editing. In a scene with two people on their rugged horses looking into the distance, the epic atmosphere created by the limitless sky enveloping the vast land beneath completely vanishes when a furry microphone hangs down the top, contrasting sharply with the background. The microphone shows up three times in that scene, and we have to wonder how that kind of editing mistake could have possibly been overlooked.
That being said, what else can we expect of Cage after last year’s equally predictable “Knowing”? It seems Cage is past his prime. An Academy Award proves Cage’s skill as a thespian is certainly indisputable, but you’d think he’d have the skill to pick better projects than the disappointing “Season of the Witch.”