Summary:
Crusader deserters are charged with bringing a suspected witch to an isolated monastery, where the monks that reside there will use a book to judge her.
My Thoughts:
I believe I’m right in saying that I’ve watched this film four times now. Once in theaters, twice with friends, and once by myself, just now. I’m sure I’ll get some flak for saying this, but I sort of enjoy this movie. It’s not good; I know that full well, and because of that, I’ve still given this a 2.5/5 star rating. But, at the same time, this film checks a lot of boxes that put it high on the list of Seth’s Guilty Pleasure films. I love sword and sorcery films, even if they’re bad (for proof see my “An Age Undreamed of…” Series). I love dark fantasy worlds with untold of evils and heroic knights that sacrifice all to conquer that evil. I love stories of magic and mystery and weird freaking occurrences, and this film has all of those things. It doesn’t do many of those things well, mind you, but it still does them.
The plot is pretty much indistinguishable from plenty of other grimdark or sword and sorcery film out there (troubled but ultimately good knights must battle some great magic evil and the only way to do it is to use a special object). The way the story progresses feels almost like a videogame, constantly pausing for needless fight scenes. The logic of the characters, as well as the character development, when looked at with any kind of scrutiny, immediately starts to fall apart. This is an undeniably bad movie... but it’s also a ton of fun, and it’s only an hour and a half long. As far as guilty pleasure movies, I feel as if I could do a lot worse…
“We believe what we want to believe.”
After crusaders Behmen (Nicolas Cage, “The Rock”) and Felson (Ron Perlman, “Hellboy (2004)”) leave the army they were stationed with for moral reasons, they come to a city decimated by plague. The city is controlled by Cardinal D’Ambroise (Christopher Lee, “The Wicker Man”), and, after he finds out that Behmen and Felson are deserters, he charges them take a suspected Witch (Claire Foy, “First Man”) to a distant monastery where monks will judge the girl to see if she really is a witch, and if she might be responsible for the black plague. Among those acompanying Behman, Felson, and the girl are Debelzaq (Stephen Campbell Moore, “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”), Hagamar (Stephen Graham, “Rocketman”), and Kay (Robert Sheehan, “Mortal Engines”).
Before I really get started, I want to say that even eight years after this film, I could never imagine this movie getting made today, mostly because I’m not sure who the target audience for this film was (just me, probably). This is a forty-million dollar fantasy flick without any prior novel/comic/video game property behind it, and it stars a couple big name actors. Though this is a PG-13 film, there are some pretty graphic and disturbing moments which include looking at a mass grave of plague-ridden and rotting corpses, slaughtering women and children in the name of God, severing the heads of zombie-fied monks, and straight up fighting a demon... With all that darkness, I feel like they should’ve just pulled out all the stops and went full on R-rated gory fantasy, for that’s the tone they’re trying to set the entire time… or, at least, I thought they were. The tone is sort of all over the place; sometimes there’s a bit of humor between Behmen and Felson (“Whomever kills the least men buys the drinks tonight!”), which made me feel as if this was sort of a swashbuckling film, but then we would get scenes where grimy, decrepit characters were covered in bloody sores and pus-encrusted boils, and then Behmen spends forty minutes of the movie brooding. I still have no idea how I’m supposed to feel throughout the entirety of my viewing, and neither, apparently, did Cage, who gave one of his more wooden performances in recent memory.
The story behind this film, as I already mentioned, is pretty paint by numbers. If you’ve ever attended any lecture on story structure, more than like Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero with a Thousand Faces’ has come up, or if not that particular work, you’ve at least probably seen the hero’s journey: a character leaves the ordinary world, finds friends and allies, takes on challenges before there’s a ‘death and rebirth’, eventually he overcomes his trials and returns from his adventure where he can share his knowledge with the world. If you wanted to, you could follow that plot structure note by note through this film; it feels as if a fresh-from-film-school screenwriter wrote this while carefully following along with Joe Campbell’s book open beside him. Now, don’t get me wrong, the simplistic story is actually one of the things that I like about this film. While it is incredibly basic, to the point that it doesn’t deviate from monomyth even a bit, it’s a familiar storyline that doesn’t take much thought to fall into; i.e. the perfect guilty pleasure film.
I know I’ve ragged on this film quite a bit (there’s quite a lot to criticize), but remember, this is one of my guilty pleasure films. Though I can admit there are a ton of ridiculous choices and implausible moments of plot progression, this movie is still a ton of fun. There are some things that I actually think are done well; the production design looks pretty phenomenal throughout. There are some moments where the design falters (like the bridge over the chasm), but for the most part, the production design is the shining star of this film. The other shining star in this film is Claire Foy, whom, at this point in her carreer, has pretty much become a household name thanks to her role in Netflix’s “The Crown”. When I first saw this film in theaters, however, I had no idea who Claire Foy was, and I remember thinking even then that her performance was the standout. Returning to this film today, I have to say I agree with my original assessment; Foy is the only one who really cared while making this movie. Cage is pretty stoic throughout, even emotionless at times.
The next thing I’d like to address is part of why I like this film, yet, simultaneously, it’s also one of the reasons this is a bad film, and that is the pacing never lets up. Our characters are almost always fighting something or running from someone or getting ready for another battle. This film is an hour and a half, and I’d bet forty-five minutes of it is the characters fighting something silly (like demon wolves!). From a story standpoint, this feels exactly like something that would come from a videogame (Players fight! and now here’s a cutscene to fill in the details, players fight again! and another cut scene to fill in some more details). While it doesn’t really work entirely, it keeps the film moving, and because there’s always something going on, even if that something makes little sense, it’s still sort of fun. Our heroes constantly struggle against rival crusaders, random villagers, witch-enchanted alleyways, demonic wolves, rickety bridges, zombie-fied plague-ridden demon monks, and eventually the witch (who isn’t really a witch, but something more). This movie is absolutely nuts, but it’s also absolutely horrible. I understand why it got terrible reviews, but I still can’t bring myself to hate it.
Verdict:
This movie is a bonkers fantasy fangasm that makes little sense, but at the same time it plays in a genre I love and rarely get to see onscreen and taken seriously (how often do you see dark fantasy films in theaters anymore?). I personally still enjoy this movie; I’ve watched it four times, and, I’m sure, at some point in my life I’ll watch it again. As far as if I’d give this a recommendation, I’m not really sure. Many people will see this and hate it, but for the right crowd, it certainly is worth the meager runtime.
Review Written By: