There are some impressive effects to admire, and Moore makes a striking, shape-changing villainess, but this is humdrum fare.
Rather as if a collection of Roald Dahl's darker Tales Of The Unexpected had been re-set in an Argentina riddled with crime, petty corruption and crazy road rage, Damian Szifron's wickedly entertaining Spanish-language film features six separate stories, united only by the subject of vengeance.
Jeff Bridges is a hoot as beardy weirdy in Seventh Son, writes BRIAN VINER!
Based on Joseph Delaney's young-adult novel The Spook's Apprentice, Seventh Son certainly has a top-notch cast, led by Jeff Bridges as a grizzled old wizard, Master Gregory, and Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin, a dastardly witch.
But the film strives too hard and too obviously to travel in the slipstream of the Tolkien juggernaut, and even if you're willing to go along for the ride, that still means taking Bridges' performance seriously. Which, believe me, isn't easy.
He plays Gregory as a cross between Catweazle and Ian McKellen's Gandalf, essaying an English accent that sounds like a well-educated Californian having trouble with his dentures. Which might possibly be the case.
There are some impressive effects to admire, and Moore makes a striking, shape-changing villainess, but this is humdrum fare.
Rather as if a collection of Roald Dahl's darker Tales Of The Unexpected had been re-set in an Argentina riddled with crime, petty corruption and crazy road rage, Damian Szifron's wickedly entertaining Spanish-language film features six separate stories, united only by the subject of vengeance.
There are some impressive effects to admire, and Moore makes a striking, shape-changing villainess, but this is humdrum fare.
Rather as if a collection of Roald Dahl's darker Tales Of The Unexpected had been re-set in an Argentina riddled with crime, petty corruption and crazy road rage, Damian Szifron's wickedly entertaining Spanish-language film features six separate stories, united only by the subject of vengeance.