Season of the Witch reviewed

I was all geared up for Season of the Witch.  It was Nicolas Cage in medieval times and you know what happens when Nicolas Cage shows up, things get wacky.  And this time, the wackiness was going to be medieval!  But I entered the theater, sat down and waited for the wackiness to come...and waited...and waited....and waited...and then I realize that Nicolas Cage wasn't going to bring the wacky and I was sad.  However, Season of the Witch isn't a total loss to an extent.

Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman are Crusader knights killing all the non-Christians they see but during one battle, they end up killing woman and children which disgusts them so much they desert the knights and become people who ride horses on the earth.  They stumble upon a town and due to some WACKY HIJINKS they are charged with escorting a suspected witch into some abbey for her to stand trial for witchcraft.  But Nicolas Cage is all like "She will get a fair trial or else I won't do it."  But as soon as the party starts their journey, witch-craft happens!  And also the Bubonic Plague is running rampant since it's time of the millennium.

I must give credit where credit is due, it's not a bad looking picture.  It's not a great looking picture by any means but there was obvious effort put in the set design and cinematography.  For the most part, it's shot with a lot of dark colors and almost always at night.  It really sets up the mood fairly well.  And the action scenes are actually shot by people who can hold a camera and editing by someone without ADD which is nice and leads to battles that are actually watchable, even if they lack flair.  But the movie's other attempts to set up tension like chases and crossing a rickety bridge fares a lot worse leading to a lot of boredom when they show up.

As for the acting, it's all droll and boring.  Like I said, Nicolas Cage doesn't bring any of his wackiness to the role at all.  He just looks bored and in fact, looks even more bored here than he did in Con Air.  Granted, he may look the part of a dirty knight but there's no soul or personality to this.  Ron Perlman does his best to liven up things but at times you can tell that he's mentally given up trying to save the movie.  Everyone else does boring things and talk about their boring lives and fight off boring witchcraft and they're not nearly famous enough for me to care

As I watching this, I got the feeling that it could have and should have been gloriously bad rising up to the ranks of Road House or Street Fighter in it's awesome badness.  But, the movie doesn't have the balls or talent to make it so.  What we get instead is a thoroughly mediocre movie that makes some bad choices.  It occasionally is entertaining and that climax is preposterously entertaining but I'm glad I saw this for free and that's how you should see it.

5/10