The Last Witch Hunter [Movie Review]

Some movies are just fun to watch.
They are not brilliant, and they might not even really be good... per se.
But they can be fun, and that is what this movie is. Fun.

Yeah, that is Vin Diesel. Vin the Viking(?).

That's what this movie is.
It was fun, but not very good.
In fact several things spoiled it over all, but still I enjoyed watching it.

3 out of 5 stars

Is Micheal Caine in every other movie I see?

The story is not the most inspired story ever. Imagine a Dungeons and Dragons game set in the modern world and that is more or less what you get. (I'll be honest... that actually sounds like a fun campaign. It would just need some tweaking to incorporate modern weapons, maybe...)

I don't want to spoil too much of the plot, but I'll lay out a bit.

800 or so years ago, our hero, Kaulder (Vin Diesel) and a band of other Vikings(?) are hunting the Witch Queen. If they kill her the plagues will end. Kaulder kill her, but she curses him with immortality.

Yggdrasil, I presume.

Jump ahead to the 'modern world.' An order of priests called the Cross and Axe watches over Kaulder, the Weapon, who maintains and polices the truce between Witches and Humans. Then shit hits the fan. 

You know nothing, Vin Diesel.

The fist 3/4 of the movie is filled with some pretty fun bits. Fun little in jokes for role players, nerds, and more. There is a blatant reference to a 14th Level Warlock. There are interesting world details. Things that are not fully explored but could have been really cool. Things like Kaulder working on old mechanically driven watches. It's cool. It explores some of his personality... but it is not explored enough.

And that is one of the movies failings. It could have explored more of the characters, giving us more to their motivations and drives. We get some (typical tropes actually), but we could have used more and more interesting ones.

Ygritte, Riddic, and Frodo... weird team.

The other major failing is the extremely fast ending battles. There are roughly three big boss baddies at the end, and each takes maybe two minutes for Kaulder to finish off. Each climactic battle is rather underwhelming.

Still Rose Leslie (Ygritt from Game of Throne) is in the movie, which is much the opposite of a bad thing. I'd like to see her in more things. That's the thing... the cast is in no way bad. Vin Diesel is an action star, Elijah Wood is a good enough actor, Rose Leslie is a good actress, and Micheal Caine is an amazing actor. The story is not even that bad (nor is it that great either).

I really liked her in this role. I really did.
Or I might just be a sucker for a pretty redhead.

It's the execution. Too many special effects for no real reason. A rushed ending. Not enough characterization despite all the teases towards deeper character. This movie only ran 106 minutes. If it ran 120, those details might have been fleshed out, or those battle might have been more dramatic. Perhaps they might have meant something instead of being short VFX shots.

And I swear it is open for a sequel. It's not guaranteed one, but it is open for one. 

This is a fun movie.
This is not a good movie.

It's a strange combination.
If you want to see it, see it. It might be worth renting of watching on Netflix / Hulu later.

But it is a fun movie, I'll leave it there.