Season of the Witch

Dominic Sena didn't disappoint, directing a European medieval film in the quintessential American way, throwing authenticity out the window. I half-expected Nicholas Cage to dazzle the enemy in the decisive moment of the final duel by whipping out a lightsaber, but alas, he didn't, needlessly disrupting an otherwise smooth flow of various nonsense. It was genuinely terrible, from the initial departure from the army to the final CGI mess, but I'll begrudgingly leave one star because I was decently entertained and had a good laugh at times. So what if it was unintended? I can laugh whenever I want. But seriously, it felt like a parody (blocking arrows with a sword at a distance of five meters, the cardinal dying of plague was clearly in the third stage of syphilis, etc.). Oh well. / Lesson learned: If a film character starts planning a bright future, it's time to bid them farewell. R.I.P. (19/07/2022)

An adventurous historical fantasy, thanks to which we now know that the witch hunt organized by the Inquisition was absolutely fine because those monsters allied with the devil were causing damage wherever possible. The devil had his hands full dragging as much evil as possible among the unfortunate Christians, including a devastating epidemic, and who else can stand up to such devastation than the heroic Nicolas Cage accompanied by the thunderous Ron Perlman? Similar productions have a decent budget, and therefore also a decent production design, which in many cases can disguise the fact that the screenplay and the story are just a mishmash that doesn't hold up under closer scrutiny. Quite a few aspects are saved in the case of this film, and, indeed, you don't usually get bored with this kind of film - there's always something moving, sneering, running away, or attacking, exploding, burning - in short, action, special effects, and spectacle. However, if you want the film to work as a whole, you can't turn off your brain and even nitpickingly look for errors in the logic, so it's better to avoid Season of the Witch. Overall impression: 45%. Season of the Witch is exactly the type of film that my nine-year-old son would be enthusiastic about. (20/06/2011)

Excellent visuals and a very likeable cast. The wisecracking Perlman is second to none, Cage's leading moral role fits well in this case, and Robert Sheehan shows he can play something other than the total moron in Misfits. I honestly wasn't expecting anything at all and ended up being pleasantly surprised. Dominic Sena is obviously not any miracle as a director, but in this case he’s outdone himself and managed to create some great scenes and evoke a decent period atmosphere. The story is linear and predictable, but by no means boring, and with its appealing running time, it slips by like water. One of the better B-movies of 2011, and a really great diversion on a decent level. (30/12/2011)

Season of the Witch is significantly less disastrous than one would expect from a “period B-movie from the director of Gone in Sixty Seconds starring Nick Cage chasing digital witches” (could anything sound worse?). But it’s actually a grade-A, relatively entertaining and well-cast dumb flick with a veil of mystery and not a completely predictable ending. Plus, you’ll see the exterior of the Austrian's Dachstein glacier in the background of the epilogue scene. It is a class better than Van Helsing and Dominic Sena’s previous movie, Whiteout. And if we were to strictly divide Cage’s films into good and bad, I would label this one “good” with both eyes closed. (20/01/2011)

I almost felt bad at having fun at the expense of a cripple and that I would have bad karma. Season of the Witch is an utterly dysfunctional film; nonsense on top of nonsense, but what else can we expect from historical fantasy, director Dominic Sena and Nic Cage, who in the last years has made one crap after another (with a couple of exceptions)? This digital wannabe darkness didn’t work on me at all. (13/03/2011)