Overrated and overhyped

How sad is this?

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Unfortunately I started reading the series of book this movie is based on around 2005-2006, and was horrified to know they were turning it into a movie because it's one of my favourite books of all time. Well they completely ruined it, the only things being true to the books is that the characters of John Gregory, Thomas Ward and Mother Malkin exist, and that the theme of the story is dealing with her once she is freed. Basically everything else is different, down to the characters motivations, backgrounds, and sometimes even very existence (Kit Harrington's character is dead before the book even starts, and he dies to a completely different type of creature). Beyond that the movie is poorly written, badly directed, and lacks the depth of character and lore you find in the book (a 200 page novel for 9-12 year olds, it's not like it's The Stand or some big epic). They could have done so much better, but chose not to for who knows what reasons. TL;DR The movie is probably not worth your time unless you want a very bad LOTR spoof. Go read the book, it'll take you like 2 hours max.

Just relax and soak this one up. It's fun and not at all as bad as reviews suggest. It reminds me of a time when these movies took themselves less seriously. Good fun. Good hero. Good villain. Good enough FX. Double love stories. Fun action. Pass the popcorn.

SEVENTH SON is yet another cookie-cutter Hollywood fantasy adventure blockbuster aimed at the kid and teenage crowd. It feels virtually identical to THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, a Nicolas Cage movie, albeit with a cod-medieval setting rather than the real world of the Cage movie. Jeff Bridges - who gives an embarrassingly poor copy of Ian McKellen's role as Gandalf throughout - plays a ghost-busting witch finder who takes on an apprentice (in the form of dull nice guy Ben Barnes) to battle an evil witch, played by the hideous overacting Julianne Moore. What with roles in this and R.I.P.D., you get the impression that Bridges has become one of the lazier actors in Hollywood these days.The plot is merely a series of dialogue exchanges dotted between the big CGI set-pieces showing our heroes fighting giant monsters, getting captured, and occasionally falling in love. Alicia Vikander, nowadays a big actress in her own right, shows up as the love interest but makes no impression whatsoever, while Kit Harington has a cameo so brief as to be pointless. The CGI is fairly good - you'd expect it to be given the budget - but the film has absolutely no character of its own and thus feels uniformly bland and derivative.

I think another reviewer put it nicely when he wrote, that this is neither a disaster nor a classic. It can be entertaining though, if you let yourself into the fantasy world. You've got really good actors in this and they're having fun. Jeff Bridges seems to channel a bit of Tom Hardy, though it's hard to tell sometimes the way he talks (in this case it's slightly different and almost to earnest for the tone of the movie itself, which is way lighter).But you also have the recently Oscar winning Vikander and Ms. Moore, both wonderful in their own rights. The special effects are decent too, though I didn't watch the 3D version, so I can't say how those worked out for the movie. It's a family affair mostly, even if it gets a bit dark from time to time.