Season Of The Witch

     
     Last night I decided on seeing a movie in theaters, needed a break from work and painting the soon to be baby's room. Season of the Witch I really didn't know too much going into seeing it other than a trailer once or twice. The movie starts off with a back story of a hanging of three witches, one of whom escapes and even though its not out right told seems to be the main character in the rest of the movie.
     The main characters of the film are Behmen (Nicholas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) who have been fighting through battles in the Crusades side by side for years. Speaking of Crusades that sets our time from around 1338 and after being tired of killing innocent women and children in the name of the church, Behmen and Felson desert the Crusades and are discovered in a town nearby suffering from the Black Plague. To keep from being killed by the towns high priest who's dying of the plague he offers them the chance to escort a captive woman being held for being a witch and creating the black plague.
     Story follows the two plus Debelzaq (a priest), Eckhart (knight), Hagamar (guide), and Kay (an altar boy who's out to be a knight). It's basically a shortened epic, main idea get from point 'A' to point 'B' alive, with some obstacles being thrown in the way. The obstacles in this instance referring to the witch trying to kill off her captors and escape. When they finally get to their destination they find their witch has purposely lead them there to destroy the very book they seek to use to kill her. Long story short, they learn she's not a witch at all that they have to contend with but a girl possessed by a demon. Can't really talk to much of the I guess you can call them "battles" or encounters with the witch because they try to pull off a little Hitchcock/6th Sense twist, that kinda gets pulled off but was a little to obvious it was coming.
     Really simple plot, good movie though and some really nicely done CGI work, the thing that will ruin it all though is the ending is just bad and poorly done. What's the worst part is this is one of those your like, come on they make every movie 20 minutes too long except this one that could use that time. As far as actors go, I'm sorry to Nic and Ron but I think anyone could of pulled these characters off. This movie was good, but had sooo much more potential to be great, it's some where between Syfy channel and blockbuster.  Leads me to my last opinion and that it got a little preachy in some areas about the debate over church and god and beliefs. But, I enjoyed it because A) It took place during a time period I love and B) It dealt with witchcraft.