Review: "Season of the Witch"

Wow! Two movies in one week? I'm on a tear.

I first wrote about Season of the Witch in the fall of 2009, when it was scheduled for release the following March. Then, it seemed to fade away. And suddenly came back with a new release date, 10 months after it was originally scheduled. That should have gotten my spidey senses tingling, but I was intrigued by the possibilities surrounding the premise, so when D suggested we go if his scheduled trip to A.C. was canceled due to the snow, we found ourselves and our friend Heather in the audience of the 8:25 screening tonight.

Set during the Crusades, Season of the Witch stars Nic Cage (another thing which should have set my hackles to "rise") as Behmen and Ron Perlman as Felson, knights who abandon their pledges when they realize the Church is making them kill innocent people (imagine a religion doing something like that... shocking!). While on the lam, they stumble upon a plague-ridden city where the dying Cardinal D'Ambroise (genre legend Christopher Lee) offers them redemption if they'll accompany a priest and a grieving knight as they escort a witch (on whom they blame the plague) to a remote monastery where the monks are to preside over a ritual that will determine the young woman's fate. It was at about this point that I turned to Heather and asked "Is this a Monty Python movie?" At first, the deserters refuse, but Behmen, overtaken with guilt and believing the girl to be innocent, relents and they are soon on the road joined by a swindler as their guide and a pretty altar boy who wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a knight.

After a promising opening scene, Season of the Witch moves on to a montage of battles and debauchery in which we learn Behmen and Felson are not just great warriors, but best buds. It is then that the cliches simply start to pile atop one another in a slow-moving trek through haunted woods, across rotting bridges and up foreboding mountain trails. As the party begins to thin the CGI ramps up (one character is actually eaten alive by CGI-enhanced wolves - sadly none of them Joe Manganiello) and by the time they reach their destination and the truth about the girl has come out, all hell breaks loose.

At some point, I simply started running a silent version of MST3K in my head until Heather and I couldn't stand it anymore and spent the last 20 minutes of the movie trying to control our hysterics over its cheesiness, much to poor D's consternation. The screenplay by Bragi Schut is so bloated with ridiculous dialog that only Perlman (a seasoned vet of genre campiness) seems to understand it is so crappy, it has to be played for laughs. Cage puts on his best self-important hero persona, making his idiotic dialog all the funnier, though sadly, without a hint of camp irony. Please, will someone get him to lighten up again. he was so funny in Kick-Ass. What happened?

The rest of the cast is completely forgettable, except for Stephen Graham, a British actor who plays the swindler/guide with an inexplicable Brooklyn accent. Newcomers Claire Foy as the girl and Robert Sheehan as the boy are serviceable, while handsome Danish Daddy Ulrich Thomsen manages to be the most convincing period character, though how he manages to get through the movie without breaking into hysterics, is beyond me. Director Dominic Sena (Swordfish) steals ideas and images from dozens of better movies, including Raiders of the Lost Ark; The Mummy; Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'; Drag Me to Hell; The Lord of the Rings and even the terrible The Thirteenth Warrior, making a film that lacks a single moment of originality in either its tone or design. Even the "big effect" creature at the end of the movie is in fact so completely underwhelming, it makes the giant spider at the end of It look like a stroke of genius.

Should you see Season of the Witch? Let me put it this way, if you have home parties where you play your own version of MST3K, then you might want to see it so you can get started on writing the jokes you're going to shout out when you have that party. Otherwise... no, not really.

Season... may not be the first movie I saw in 2011, but it is the first movie I saw that was released in 2011. So how sad it is that I'm starting the year with the first entry of my "Worst of 2011" list? Season of the Witch is a terrible movie, redeemed (if that's even the right word) only by its unintentional hilarity.

Zero stars. Rated PG-13 for "thematic elements, violence and disturbing content."

More, anon.
Prospero

Review: "Kick-Ass"

Shh! Dear D and I had intended to see a show together, which neither of us really wanted to see, but sort of should, for various reasons. But knowing it would have been painful (and those we cared about who were in it would forgive us), we went with "Plan B" and went to see Kick-Ass, instead.

Dave Lisewski (Aaron Johnson) is a typical teenager, trying to figure things out by deliberately remaining anonymous. He hangs with his two nerdy buddies, Marty and Todd (Clark Duke and Evan Peters). They eat lunch together, go to the comic-book store together and even get get mugged together... a lot. Dave wonders why no one has ever tried to be a superhero in real-life* before, and after the umpteenth mugging, Dave orders a wet suit from Amazon and assembles himself a rather amateurish (not to mention garish) green and yellow superhero costume. He practices jumping, rolling and kicking and eventually goes out to stop crime... and promptly ends up in the hospital, near death. But almost like the "Six Million-Dollar Man," Dave is brought back from the brink and somewhat (thanks to what happened), "improved." I don't want to spoil it for you, so that's all the origin story you get from me.

As all this is happening, Damon Macready (Nicolas Cage) is training his 11 year-old daughter Mindy (Chloe Moretz) on how to take a shot while wearing body armor, shoot guns and wield knives, blades and ninja stars with deadly accuracy.

18 months later, Dave takes up the costume again, determined to be the guy who gives a damn, Not only is he victorious in his next attempt, but he's recorded on several cell-phones, resulting in a the biggest YouTube viral video, ever. Kick-ass immediately becomes a star with 16,000 MySpace friends. Dave is also crushing on Katie (doe-eyed Lyndsy Fonseca), a girl who thinks he's her sassy gay BFF. When Katie tells Dave that she's afraid to tell a creep named Rasul to leave her alone, Kick-Ass shows up to deliver the message for her; once again finding himself in just a little over his head. But at the last second, a purple-haired child in a mask, cape and plaid pleated skirt takes out the entire bunch of very bad men. Hit-Girl is a very foul-mouthed assassin, with skills that both amaze and terrify Dave. She introduces herself, and her father, Big Daddy, a guy who wears as close to a Batman costume as possible, without infringing on copyright. Unfortunately for Dave, Rasul and his pals worked for dangerous Mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), who issues a hit on the person he thinks is responsible: our hero, Kick-Ass.

The performances here are all-terrific. Everyone gets it, playing their parts truthfully, despite the absurdity of it all. The adorable Johnson makes his American film debut (though a quick glance at his IMDb profile lists a slew of credits in the U.K.) and gives a funny, charming and intelligent performance as Dave/Kick-Ass. Moretz (500 Days of Summer; Diary of a Wimpy Kid) is nothing short of amazing as Mindy/Hit-Girl and it's funny, rather than shocking when she uses words Uncle P only uses when he's alone in the car, all while she is brutally slicing and dicing bad guys without a hint of remorse or fear. Most surprising is Cage, finally playing a superhero (even if it's not the one he wanted to). He's just terrific, channeling Adam West's version of Batman without an iota of irony, making his performance all that much funnier. Strong (Sherlock Holmes) is once again the perfect villain and his interpretation of an immoral, ruthless New York Mob boss is dead-on, though not without its own moments of hilarity. I do hope Strong isn't forever typecast, because I'd love to see him as a heroic lead, someday. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad's McLovin) is hilarious as Red Mist, a 'manufactured ' superhero with ulterior motives and the beautiful Omari Hardwick displays the right amount of intensity as the cop who knows everybody's secrets.

Director Matthew Vaughn (2007's amazing and underrated Stardust) has obviously studied the works of action directors who have come before, and he delivers some of the most exciting (if exceptionally violent) action-sequences since the Wachowski brothers. Paying homage to Peckinpah; Tarentino; Scorcese; McTiernan; Nolan and more, Vaughn doesn't cheat with a million quick-cuts that turn every action sequence into a headache-inducing blur. Instead, he lets the camera linger over the outrageous bodily harm being done and the copious amount of blood being spilled. The ridiculously over-the-top violence here is hardly gratuitous, but rather part of the joke -- it's so outrageous, the only possible reaction is laughter. The script (by Vaughn and his Stardust co-writer Jane Goldman), is both hilarious and insightful, simultaneously spoofing and embracing the superhero genre much more successfully than films like Mystery Men.

D agreed we had made the better choice, especially since he saw his first trailer for the upcoming testosterone-palooza, The Expendables. He actually grabbed my arm in excitement - if there's one boy who's gay for Stallone (and Franco, but that's for later) - it's D. And he will be the first to admit it (though he also told me he's curious about Ellen... go figure). I'll be seeing it with him, of course. But only because it also stars the action star I am totally gay for (don't even...).

Here's the NSFW-language ridden Red Band trailer for Kick-Ass:

Admittedly, Kick-Ass is not a movie for everyone. Some will be put-off by it's offensive language and excessive violence, but they'll be missing the point. Children should most definitely be kept from seeing this film. There are few things that make your Uncle P angrier than seeing children at an age-inappropriate movie. Of course, all that having been said, D and I both had such a good time, Kick-Ass is the first official contender for my Top Ten of '10.

Finally, a movie that lives up to its title. Kick-Ass does indeed, kick ass. ****(Four Stars) Kick-Ass is rated R for Adult Language; Extreme Violence and Sexual Situations.

*As a side note, there are in fact, some real people who dress up in costumes and 'fight crime,' though that's for a post all it's own. Remind me, will you?

More, anon.
Prospero