The Last Witch Hunter is a lot like a burnt steak — most people could turn quality raw materials into a tasty treat, but the chef it was given to has ruined it.
Dialogue from the romance subplot stands out in a good way, and contributes a lot to viewers learning about the world of The Last Witch Hunter. Chloe is initially terrified of Kaulder, having been raised on the stories of the witch hunter who would find and punish bad witches, but finds him to be as compassionate as he is dangerous. Photos courtesy Summit Entertainment.
In this case, the raw materials are solid lead actors and a great story. The movie follows Kaulder (Vin Diesel), an 800 year old witch hunter who was cursed with immortality while slaying the witch queen (Julie Englebrecht) in the Dark Ages. His handler, the 36th Dolan (Michael Caine), one of a long line, retires early in the film, but is murdered in his office soon after. Kaulder begins to hunt down the witch responsible, and after finding the newly sworn 37th Dolan (Elijah Wood) to be little help, he is thrust together with a young dream-manipulating witch, Chloe (Rose Leslie).
The first thing to notice about this movie is how fundamentally bad it is. In its first scene, The Last Witch Hunter makes Fellowship of the Ring’s key mistake, opening with a long, high-fantasy prologue that’s going to be gone through again in detail later and should have been saved in full for that time. This movie would have been so much better with a cold open of Kaulder doing his thing in the 2000s, and then when he’s told to re-visit the day he was cursed, it’s a painful memory he hasn’t thought about in a long time — and neither have the viewers, because it wasn’t shoved down our throats immediately on entering the theater. Then the whole thing would have much more emotional impact as we actually learn something new about the character.
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Maureen O’Hara, one of the last living Golden Age actors, died in her sleep this morning in her home in Boise, Idaho. She was 95.
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