Samstag, 14. März 2015

Movie Review: Seventh Son (based on the novel “The Spook’s Apprentice” by Joseph Delaney)

“You think humanity’s good. 
There's evil inside of every one of them. 
They use you and they will throw you to the fire. 
Why choose them? Darkness is in you.

Content:

Centuries ago, a supernatural champion named Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges) defeated Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), a malevolent witch. Now, she has escaped imprisonment and thirsts for vengeance. She summons her followers and prepares to unleash her wrath on humanity. Only one thing stands in her way: Master Gregory. Gregory takes Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) as his new apprentice, but he has only until the next full moon to teach Tom what usually takes years: how to prevail against dark magic.

My opinion:

Lean back my friends; I have a lot to rant about.

As a book to movie adaptation, this movie was a clear example of how you should NOT do it. They did everything wrong, what you can possibly can mess up.
I am a dedicated fan of the books, as it’s my favorite book-series of all time, and I was really looking forward to the movie, and all my favorite characters coming to live. However, I was highly disappointed. They changed A LOT from the book, and it felt like they just wanted to bring in more action and more romance, and thus, they changed the whole plot. But this is just not right.
But let’s start off with the casting. Tom is supposed to be 13 in the first book and they cast an actor who is older than 30? How logical is that? (same with Alice, btw) The acting itself though, was quite alright. But the good actors couldn’t make up for the horrible script. (Also: how do you mess up a book-to-movie adaptation? You literally have the script in your hands when reading the book!)
Then let’s move on to the plot. As I said before, the whole plot was changed. Yeah, Tom was the seventh son of a seventh son, and he was about to become a Spook, but that’s it from what they kept from the book. The Spook is drunk all the time (which wouldn’t happen in the book) and Tusk, who is actually the Spooks ENEMY, is suddenly his best friend and helper. Furthermore, the plot-line with Mother Malkin was changed, and now she has a castle. Yeah, because that’s how witches who were locked in a cave for hundreds of years roll, you know? Oh, and she has four helpers now, from all over the world, which wasn’t in the book either. But the thing, which disturbed me the most, was that they brought in plot-lines from all the first 5 books of the series! The Spooks secret (Book 3) is already revealed, same as the secret of Tom’s mother. If you have only read the first book of the series, in order to prepare for the movie, you really shouldn’t watch it, because it will spoil everything. Another thing, which was horrible, was that they tried to force in a romantic relationship between Alice and Tom. There is not SUCH a relationship between these two in the first books. Only because people want to see some romantic scenes, you don’t have to force it, especially if it’s not the in the book!
The ending of the book was the worst, though. After one week the whole apprentice of a Spook should be done, although it normally takes years? Yeah, sure, seems legit.
The good thing, however, were the visual effects. I think they did a pretty good job with the 3D and the scenery all in all. I also really liked the costumes. It put you into that “middle age” mood.

Seeing the movie as a movie and not book-to-movie adaptation, the film has its flaws too. My friend, who hasn’t read the books before, actually said that she was really confused at some points as to what’s going on, which isn’t the best thing, when you watch a movie. It kind of just felt like that changed everything for comedy, romance and actions sake.

Conclusion:

This book would have such great potential to become a great movie-series, but they messed it up. Also the great acting and the awesome visual effects couldn’t make up for the bad script. As a dedicated fan, I am really disappointed.

Rating:

2|5 stars
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