THE SEVENTH SON by Sergey Bodrov was screened in Austin tonight, and I went in curious, but worried. Not because of Sergey Bodrov, I dig him. He’s the director of NOMAD: THE WARRIOR and MONGOL: THE RISE OF GENGHIS KHAN, that last one was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2008 Academy Awards.
Still, I get how that means nothing to most folks… or, even if it does – you look at the trailers for SEVENTH SON and you’ve got a mumbly Jeff Bridges and a whole bunch of monsters roaring at the camera while you get something about the Seventh Son of the Seventh Son. And who knows what that’s all about. But at the end of the day, the film in the advertising feels a bit ridiculous.
Well, let me set it up for ya a bit.
This was based upon THE SPOOK’S APPRENTICE by Joseph Delaney. Folks that have read the book, tend to love it, but not many have discovered the book. I’m betting that title had something to do with it. I mean, SPOOK isn’t being used in any insensitive manner, in fact, it uses the name to essentially mean Medieval Doctor Strange work. The sad thing is that most reviews of the book that I’ve come across describe the book as actually being scary. That’s not really how the film plays. This is more of a BEASTMASTER, SWORD & THE SORCERER & DRAGONSLAYER type of flick, while never quite reaching the unrelenting joy of those movies.
Jeff Bridges plays an old cantankerous Rooster Cogburn of Medieval Witch Hunters… that alone makes this better than that HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS. It may be hard to understand some of his mush mouth antics, but I just can’t quite hate on Jeff Bridges. It might be that I’m just so happy that this is better than R.I.P.D. and THE GIVER, which both tested that long lingering adoration I have for Bridges. Now the Dude as a bit of a drunken surly handler of the things that go bump, it’s fun, but that he has an apprentice… well, that’s PRINCE CASPIAN himself, Ben Barnes. Now, my favorite Ben Barnes role has been his way too short part in Matthew Vaughn’s outstanding STARDUST as Tristan’s young father. But here… I can’t help but see him being amused by Bridges’ affable Master Gregory throughout the film, under whatever emotion he’s trying to project… and I completely get that. And liked it.
No, most of my problems with this comes from the by the numbers screenplay, which only ever illuminates motivations through exposition, instead of actions. The film is too obsessed with dialogue revelations, rather than actually allowing these characters and creatures to awe us.
We’ve got a four armed character that’s only there to Ginsu folks. When Harryhausen gave us 4 armed characters, one was to entertain two Sultans with a dance that was bizarre and frightening in 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, Kali was brought to life to demonstrate Tom Baker’s Sorcerer ways by first dancing for him, then defending him. The final 4 armed character was the Kraken… and we all know how much awesome and awe that character had. This one… he makes a GOTCHA face a whole lot.
They cast Jason Scott Lee as Urag, this Beorn type of skin changer, that turns to a Bear… but… we hear about how there was like this epic battle with a bunch of soldiers, but we get him in a cage, roaring… Then he’s turned into Jason Scott Lee… and we’re yelling and screaming and fighting and the bear is roaring and – it looks fine, but man. Jason Scott Lee had nothing to do.
Then there’s Djimon Hounsou, he’s got axe blades on the ends of chains, but rather than deal with that type of choreography, when put to it, he dragons out and eats folks, but so quickly that anything he does barely registers.
My fave bit of casting in the film besides Jeff Bridges and Ben Barnes is the Main Villain of the piece, that’s right… the mate of the Big Lebowski himself, Maude! JULIANNE MOORE is the wicked witch, Mother Malkin! One, I just love watching Bridges and Julianne on screen together – being freaky on screen together… but I kind of felt that Julianne Moore really was robbed of being able to relish her power.
There’s a point in the film, where she’s at maximum strength, and all she does is a bit of mind control… and I was wanting a true demonstration of evil kicking back and enjoying their upper hand… and I really wanted Bridges to react to the freaky shit, because… he does it so well. But instead, the sequence devolves into violence, as if that’s all they could do. That was a tad disappointing to me.
NOW I KNOW – this is a whole lot of me bitching, but the reality is – I wanted a better script for Sergey Bodrov’s Hollywood debut flick. Now – Bridges and Barnes carry most of this film. Where Bodrov shines is in his framing and attention to detail within that frame. There’s some very nice work here, but the most enjoyable stuff comes from crazy ol Jeff Bridges!
The reason to see the film is to see Bridges do a Rooster Cogburn in Medieval Times flick, I spent enough years at Renaissance Faires at an early age, that I enjoy these films. This isn’t a complete loss like that shitty KULL THE CONQUEROR with Kevin Sorbo or the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS from 2000 or ERAGON or any of the shitty SCORPION KING flicks.
This has a sense of scope to the film. I love the settings and the locations, the score by Marco Beltrami is quite fine… but pure rage monsters bore the heck out of me. I expect more from my creatures than pure hatred all the time. When something roars constantly I just want to hit it on the nose. Harryhausen always said the key to great fantasy creatures was to not think of them as Monsters, but as creatures with their own motivations and curiosities. They might have had great visual effects to render their creatures, but there was no nuance to their beasties and witches.
Go for Jeff Bridges though! He and Sergey Bodrov will give you enough to enjoy, but I wish I could love this one. It just isn’t all the way there for me.
