After a Middle Ages witch hunt gone wrong, Dominique (Vin Diesel) is cursed with immortality and thus forever burdened with the memory of his lost beloved wife and daughter. Fast-forward to present day and Dom is still keeping the witch population in check with help from his faithful manservant, Alfred (Michael Caine). When Alfred is attacked by some dark Nordic super warlock who doubtless has the suffix “sson” on his name (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), Dom enlists new hired help, Frodo (Elijah Wood), and bar wench witch, Ygritte (Rose Leslie), to track down the Dark Ages rascal before he re-animates Dom’s witch queen nemesis.
If you can get past Diesel’s quietly hilarious Norse beard, The Last Witch Hunter is a reasonably fun fantasy action thriller. It’s Middle Ages sections hark to the sword ‘n’ sorcery cheapies of the early eighties (The Sword and the Sorcerer, Beastmaster, Krull et al) while it’s present day sections are solid Ghostbusters/Men In Black type fare with a dash of Underworld thrown in for good measure.
It’s all harmless fun, though the final showdown between the good guy and the bad girl is typically predictable and correspondingly yawn worthy.
The film finishes in a manner that suggests the origin of a new franchise but if the dearth of pre-promotion for the film is anything to go by, this is unlikely to happen with the exception, perhaps, of a handful of straight-to-DVD cheapies.
Stewart Jamieson
www.thelastwitchhunter.movie
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