FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE REVIEW: Last night I saw the movie “Seventh Son” which stars Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, R.I.P.D.), Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Stardust), Julianne Moore (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Kids Are All Right), Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair, Ex Machina), Antje Traue (Man of Steel, Pandorum), Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, Rushmore), John DeSantis (The 13th Warrior, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), Kit Harington (Game of Thrones [TV series], Pompeii), and Djimon Hounsou (Gladiator, Guardians of the Galaxy). It is directed by Sergey Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountain, Fool’s Game). Many years ago, John Gregory (Bridges) trapped an evil witch named Mother Malkin (Moore) underground and locked her up so she couldn’t hurt anyone again. John is the local spook, someone who protects the people from the scary monsters out in the world, as well as a seventh son of a seventh son. The problem is that John isn’t as young as he used to be anymore and needs an apprentice to take his place when the time comes. And he finds that apprentice in Tom Ward (Barnes) a farmhand who is also a seventh son of a seventh son. Malkin soon ends up breaking out of her prison, seeking revenge against John and planning to take over the world. It is up to John to train Tom to fight so that they can take on Malkin and defeat her once and for all.

After watching this movie, I have come to enjoy it. The story is….different in a way. I mean, it’s a fantasy genre so of course you’re bound to see some knight armor or dragons, but the main arc of this story was interesting. There were some points where the story will seem like it wasn’t theater material, but overall, looking at the big picture, you begin to appreciate it more, especially after viewing further into the story. The characters are pretty cool to watch and the acting is good to back them up. I think Jeff Bridges stole the show every time he was on. His character was funny and for some reason, you just enjoyed watching his character in action. Besides him I thought Ben Barnes did a good job as well, having never seen him in a film before. Him and Bridges had a good chemistry on-screen as characters. The action scenes were well done and the special effects were pretty good as well. There were some spots where the special effects were slacking though, but overall it was good. The action scenes were great and there are quite a bit of them that are fun to watch. When it comes to cons, I think most of them surround the character Mother Malkin. Although she seemed like a good villain, she was under-sold in the film. The beginning gave her such promise, but throughout the film, most of her scenes felt like fillers. I liked the scenes with Bridges training Barnes, but when it would cut to Malkin at her hidden castle, most of the scenes seemed unnecessary and I could already get what was going on without them. I admit, some are needed, like when she is building up her army so that you can know who the new bad guys are. But other than that, her scenes were just not working for me. Another con would be the build up of Malkin and how much she can destroy, but when you reach the very ending, she doesn’t do anything to the heroes. They basically try to make a romance, take-a-look-back-at-life scene with her and it didn’t work. When you build up a villain, you want to see them take a shot at the heroes of the story, but really she didn’t fight any of them at all in the last battle which was disappointing. Overall, this movie was fun to watch even with the bad villain and fantasy is always a rich genre to watch. Again, I have to say how great Jeff Bridges is in this. FINAL SCORE: 75%= Juicy Popcorn Here is the trailer: