{"id":551,"date":"2011-01-06T23:00:06","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T23:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/?p=551"},"modified":"2011-01-06T23:00:06","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T23:00:06","slug":"season-of-the-witch-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/action\/season-of-the-witch-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Season of the Witch – 2*"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Nicolas Cage<\/a> recently admitted he\u2019s always wanted to be a knight, ever since the age of five. Well, it looks like he got his wish, chain mail, Crusades and all, in Season of the Witch<\/em><\/a>, which is a curious mix of supernatural horror and historical period drama, with a blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-it cameo from one of Cage\u2019s own personal screen heroes, Christopher Lee<\/a>, all lumpy and bumpy from the Plague.<\/p>\n

The film choice is hardly anything out of the ordinary or taxing for the \u2018Prince of Supernatural\u2019, Cage, who likes to dabble in the magical and unexplained and has done so in many of his previous projects, most recently The Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice for Disney. Sadly Dominic Sena<\/a>\u2019s film never seems to fully amount to anything on the grand scale that you would expect from a Crusading adventure involving a witch who is blamed for the spread of the Black Plague and a dollop of demonic presence.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame, considering it has a compelling beginning as some old hags get tried and dunked for dabbling in the dark arts and the stage is fully set for a fun and boisterous adventure between two comrades-in-arms, Behmen (Cage) and Felson, played by Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman<\/a>. The two are seen slaying the un-Christian masses abroad, before stopping to think about their actions and getting an attack of conscience, then going AWOL to get away from the clutches of the 14th Century church. It\u2019s an ideal screen pairing that works a treat with Cage\u2019s sensitivity verses Perlman\u2019s oafish presence. There are also some truly humorous moments, mainly due to Perlman\u2019s Felson teaching a na\u00efve knight wannabe a thing or two about survival. As a Cage-Perlman show, it ticks all the boxes, but it just isn\u2019t enough to bring it out of mediocrity.<\/p>\n

Basically, once apprehended and made to transport the witch (Claire Foy<\/a> of newly-found Upstairs Downstairs<\/em><\/a> fame), the knights\u2019 journey seems to be virtually over, and their destination reached before there is ever time to really get into the swing of the adventure. There are also effects and the ultimate battle of good verses evil in a library \u2013 ever the power of the written word \u2013\u00a0that trigger memories of past vampire and demon films, with a touch of the Van Helsing<\/em><\/a> in places. One amusing part is Perlman headbutting Satan that Hellboy fans will relish. Finally, for such non-Christian sentiment, the word of God prevails in the end; so Bible-fearing American audiences have little to fear.<\/p>\n

The beauty is in the Cage-Perlman partnership of Season of the Witch<\/em>, so if this is appealing, it\u2019s certainly worth watching. What it lacks in plot it makes up for in casting prowess and spirit, even if the end result leaves a rather flat feeling.<\/p>\n

2\/5 stars<\/strong><\/p>\n

By L G-K<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicolas Cage recently admitted he\u2019s always wanted to be a knight, ever since the age of five. Well, it looks like he got his wish, chain mail, Crusades and all, in Season of the Witch, which is a curious mix of supernatural horror and historical period drama, with a blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-it cameo from one of Cage\u2019s … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Season of the Witch – 2*”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,187],"tags":[491,493,492,489,494,490,488],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action","category-fantasy","category-horror","tag-christopher-lee","tag-claire-foy","tag-dominic-sena","tag-nicolas-cage","tag-robert-sheehan","tag-ron-perlman","tag-season-of-the-witch"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}