by Ed Travis
Witch cinema now falls into two categories: Pre-or-post Robert Eggers’ The Witch. The Last Witch Hunter is the first witch film I’ve seen in the “post-The Witch era”. It does not benefit from that placement in witch movie history.
IMDb Synopsis:
The last witch hunter is all that stands between humanity and the combined forces of the most horrifying witches in history.
Vin Diesel is a Hollywood personality worth rooting for, but who can’t seem to quite get the worldwide audience behind him outside of his Fast/Furious franchise. The Riddick films are beloved by many, but nowhere near the box office juggernauts of the Fast films. And outside of those two franchises, Diesel has often tanked. (We’ll see if his return to the xXx franchise can change that or if it is as ill-advised as it sounds). Using apparently every last ounce of goodwill capital from the Fast bump, The Last Witch Hunter attempts to kick start a new fantasy/action franchise that isn’t so much based on a pre-existing property (exciting), but more so on Vin Diesel’s own Dungeons And Dragons character (flat out amazing).
At face value, one might call this a passion project. Diesel is credited as a producer on the film, as well as the star. He’s got just enough Fast cred to potentially have even lined up director Breck Eisner himself, and to have possibly commissioned the script (from Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama, and Burk Sharpless) himself as well (although I’m just speculating at this point). So yeah, without Vin Diesel, this isn’t a movie at all. What’s perhaps the most fascinating thing about The Last Witch Hunter, though, is that Diesel’s eternal, Highlander-esque badass witch killer Kaulder isn’t just the main character, he’s the center of the entire mythological universe built by the film. Literally an whole order of the Catholic priesthood has existed for 800 years to serve and protect this eternal witch hunter. The mythology of the film is actually fairly rich and establishes rules which are largely adhered to. There’s a lot of neat imagery and design that goes into the film, from the Witch Queen’s “plague tree” to Kaulder’s flaming sword, which is the best visual the film has to offer bar none. So it is somewhat laughable just how clearly this movie veers into “vanity project” territory when one thinks about how much effort was put into setting up Kaulder as the center of this entire universe, and therefore propping up Diesel as the ultimate messianic hero therein.
Cinematic heroes, pure and god-like, aren’t in and of themselves a bad thing. With anti-heroes all the rage these days, Kaulder represents an incredibly progressive heroicism. Not simply slaughtering Witches throughout eternity, Kaulder has helped establish a truce and spends much time as some kind of “Witch Judge”, dealing fairly with them and only imprisoning the ones dabbling in dark magic. He’s assisted by Dolan 36th (Michael Caine), the priest tasked with aiding Kaulder in his eternal quest. Elijah Wood is in training to take on the mantle of Dolan the 37th. It’s all very open and embracing of magic as neither a good or evil presence in the world, just something that exists and must be dealt with. With all this progressive heroicism, it just ends up being humorous how faultless Kaulder is and how much ado is made over him.
As an exercise in D&D-like world building, The Last Witch Hunter largely succeeds. But as an engaging action movie, it falters. The action sequences are few, far between, and frantically captured by Dean Semler’s shaky camera and Chris Lebenzon and Dean Zimmerman’s editing. With so little action packing in the runtime of this film, you’re left with relentless CGI creations that feel lifeless and weightless. There’s an actress in there somewhere playing the Witch Queen, but she’s lost in CGI messiness, and the constant barrage of computer generated wizardry just adds a slick sheen of boredom and same-ness to proceedings.
Everything about The Last Witch Hunter feels like set up for a potential new franchise… so much so that they forgot to simply tell an awesome and engaging story WITHIN this shiny new universe they spent so much time laying out. I don’t imagine this film connecting with the mainstream audience, but I’d be okay if I ended up eating my words. I like watching Vin Diesel do his nerdy, progressive-magic-messiah thing, and the supporting cast around him, including Game Of Thrones’ Rose Leslie as a witch with some secret powers of her own, are all doing solid work. There’s just a rote “heroes journey” inevitability to the whole thing that is weighed down further by the generic CGI constantly thrust upon the viewer.
Come for the flaming sword wielded by a Highlander who was always, only, ever, the “only one”, stay for the relentless CGI punctuated far too infrequently by action set pieces.
And I’m Out.