SEASON OF THE WITCH

Nicolas Cage has made some awful movies in the last couple of years.Drive Angry, The Sorcerer's Apprentice,Kick Ass,Bad Lieutenant,Knowing and Bangkok Dangerous were all horrendous movies.With the exception of Kick Ass,all the others failed at the box office.Infact,his last entertaining and successful movie was National Treasure 2 and that was back in 2007.Season of the Witch,unfortunately is another disappointing Nicolas Cage movie.But it is definitely better than the flicks i have mentioned above.The movie suffered from 2-3 delays before finally coming out.It was to release in March 2010,but it was delayed due to shooting of extra scenes.It was then supposed to open in October 2010 in US and Uk,but again at the last moment it was moved to January 2011.It finally came out on 7th January 2011.As i expected,the movie did not do that well at the box office.However ,it was able to make a slight profit.Made at a budget of $ 40 million,it earned $ 85 million at worldwide box office.

As for the story,it is a mishmash of period action/adventure and supernatural horror.The movie is set in 14th Century.Behmen(Cage) and Felson(Ron Perlman a.k.a Hellboy) are Teutonic Knights who fight in a series of crusades during the 1330's.They desert the army after being falsely misled to murder helpless women and children.Both arrive in Marburg,Styria,a place stricken with an unknown plague.The people their attribute this plague to a young witch.The Cardinal of the place(Christopher Lee),who himself is infected with the plague,requests the knights to escort the alleged witch to a monastary where a group of monks would determine if the girl really is a witch or not.If she is found guilty then the monks know a ritual that could get rid of the girls powers and at the same time stop the palgue.The knights agree to take the girl on the condition that she will be given a fair trial and that all the charges against them(knights) should be dropped.The Cardinal agrees.On their journey,they are accompanied by Debelzeg,a priest,Eckhart,the Cardinal's best knight,Kay an altar boy who wants to become a knight like his deceased father and Hagamar,a swindler who also serves as their guide.On their journey they face many trials and tribulations.During the journey it also becomes apparent that the girl is not a witch but is being possessed by a mysterious demon.Eckhart is killed during the journey.When they finally reach the monastary,they find the mnks dead and it is revealed that the demon wanted them to bring the girl to the monastary,so that he could destroy the book of Solomon,which contains the way of getting rid of the demon permanently.A fight ensues between the demon and our heroes.Behmen,Felson,Debelzeq and Hagamar are all killed.But they manage to kill the demon also.Only Kay.the altar boy and the girl survive.After burying the two knights,both of them head back for Mayburg.

I found the movie to be better than i was expecting it to be.Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman as two heroes are quite good.But the rest of the cast disappoints.They are good in patches only.Most of the time they seem to over act a bit.The story is actually better than it feels on paper.I just wish the screenplay and dialogues could have been better.Special effects are good though.But if you are looking a great action/adventure movie,this is not it.Its an above average movie and nothing more.But if you are die hard Nicolas Cage fan,then you might enjoy this one.

I just hope Nic Cage comes up with a decent watchable movie in the future.Nic fans should keep their fingers crossed.

My rating for the movie: 4/10.