Season of the Witch

I was going to pass over Season of the Witch --- mostly because it looked horrid --- but I saw Chris Gore's quick review of it and my interest was piqued by the words "zombie monks."  Admittedly, that is not a phrase that is often accompanied by "the Academy Award-winning performance of," but Nicolas Cage fighting zombie monks should have been hilarious.  Not hilarious enough, as it turns out.

When, exactly, is Witching Season?  Right after duck season?  Actually, the Season of the Witch takes place during the Crusades of the mid-1300s.  Behmen (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) are bad-ass knights that love to slaughter heretics.  We know this because the two basically tell the camera in so many words.  You'll have to take their word for it, since the large action sequences aren't very convincing.

I find it hard to believe that anyone reached age 60 in the Crusades, much less a knight

After killing in the name of (DA-DA!  DUM!) God for many years, Behmen and Felson decided to quit the team after they invaded a castle and found themselves slaughtering defenseless women and children.  The resident war-priest guy argued that there's no crying in baseball the Crusades, but nobody kept the pair from walking slowly off into the sunset.  The end.  Ha!  If only!  Behmen and Felson walk back to Behmen's hometown in Germany, only to find the area stricken with dead and bloated plague bodies.

Co-starring Christopher Lee's plague corpse!

Knowing that Crusades-quitters are outlaws, the pair enter the nearest city with the intent of buying horses to take them to Felson's hometown; ever-careful to not be identified, Behmen wears a mask over his face (which doesn't attract attention at all) and Felson wears a hood (except when he doesn't).  Despite these precautions, the men are identified as Crusades-quitters when Behmen allows a clumsy child to handle the only thing in his possession that would identify him as a Crusades-quitter. 

"Okay, maybe I should have thought that one through."

The pair get locked up in a dungeon and await their inevitable hanging for treason.  Or is it inevitable?  The town has captured a young girl that they claim is a witch.  Obviously, a witch being in the same place the plague is means that the witch cursed the land.  Just as obviously, the witch needs to be immediately killed taken to a remote colony of monks, who will put her on trial for witchcraft.  The town is a little short on brave men that can travel across the dangerous German landscape unscathed, so Behmen and Felson get a chance to clear their names.  Of course, it's not that simple.  Witchcrafted wolves and dangerous bridges stand in their way, but Behmen, Felson, the supposed witch, and a few others are off to monkland!

"I've reason to believe we both will be received in Monkland"

Sounds like an acting tour de force, eh?  Yeah, well...this was never going to be a great film, so I went into this with low expectations.  Ron Perlman was decently likable.  Robert Sheehan was kind of annoying as the d'Artagnon of the witch-escorting-party, but he's not so bad that you'll remember his performance the next day.  Claire Foy had a terrible character to play, but she still wasn't very good.  On the plus side, she is about the only person in the cast who looked dirty enough to be in the 14th century.

Surprisingly clean hair, though

Stephen Graham was mediocre in a small supporting role and Stephen Campell Moore was similarly bland as the witch-escort's resident priest.  I was kind of disappointed by their performances, because I have enjoyed them in bit parts in the past; I guess I was hoping that some British charm would help make this movie more entertaining. 

Stephen Campbell Moore witnessing Nicolas Cage overacting for the first time

But that was not to be.  This movie stars Nicolas Cage, and far from his best work.  I have seen Cage do good work in the past, and I have seen him be flamboyantly (and entertainingly) silly.  This is the other Nicolas Cage, the one who thinks he's in a serious movie.  It's not that he's terrible.  I thought he matched the tone of the film just fine; that's only a problem when the movie's tone is shitty.  I've seen him act worse, but Season of the Witch really could have used a less subdued and more ridiculously overacting Nic Cage.

"You want me to overact more?"  I know, I know.

The fact of the matter is that Season of the Witch is about as fun to watch as watching plague blister pus dry.  Why is that?  Director Dominic Sena is no stranger to stupid movies, but at least he usually has the sense to be completely goofy or have Halle Berry take her top off to distract audiences.  This movie is just dull.  The battle scenes in the beginning were tepid, the horror angle never really pays off, and there is no suspense.  This isn't the most incompetent directing job I have ever seen, but it is an impressive blend of disappointing special effects, a lousy script, cheesy acting and boring plot.

...And then there are the frequent story and visual parallels between Season of the Witch and Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.  If absolutely nothing else, I will say that Sena was bold to invite comparison between this mess and a classic film.  "Bold" isn't always a smart choice, though.  Witch takes a lot of cosmetic similarities --- two men return from the Crudades (disillusioned) to a plague-ridden homeland, the men form a traveling group in the woods, there is a potentially wrongly accused witch being transported through the woods in a wooden cage, etc. --- and tries to twist its premise into an action/fantasy film.  It could have worked (somewhat) with a better script or better special effects, but the constant reminders of a better film just make Season of the Witch seem that much worse.  On the other hand, it was pretty freaking hilarious to see just how heavy-handed the parallels were.

There is something worth noting about this film, but I have to warn you...SPOILER ALERT: Season of the Witch has no witches in it.  Ha!  HA!  That's almost funny enough to make up for the rest of the film.  That's right, the supposed witch is really a demon.  What a twist!  And that's worse because...um...well, it's the first time demons are mentioned in the story, so...I'm not sure.  The witchy-demon does animate monk corpses to fight our heroes, which is awesome in theory.  In practice, the special effects and lack of suspense or horror ruined that seemingly foolproof plot element.  Oh, well.  While that is remarkably stupid, it's not enough to make up for the rest of the movie.  It is good enough for one star, though, and I did enjoy one of the death scenes and I laughed whenever it compared itself to The Seventh Seal.  It's not much, but you take what you can get from witches.

Here's a live recording from Liars, from their witch-themed album, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned.

Whiteout

Whiteout is a heartwarming documentary about the trials and tribulations the emperor penguin must endure to continue their species.  Wait...I'm sorry.  Wrong movie.  This movie is set in Antarctica and is about...people?!?  Oh, no...that can't be good...that means characters will find some excuse to wander around outside, bundled up in parkas, masks, and goggles, making it completely impossible for even the best actor to convey anything except "Brrr!" to the audience.  Only terrible things can come from setting a movie in Antarctica.  Well, that's just common sense.  I'm sure this director knows what he's...crap.  Dominic Sena.  The director of Swordfish and Gone in Sixty Seconds is in charge of putting together an Antarctic movie that isn't terrible?  Dear Hollywood, what were you thinking?  Sincerely, Brian.

Whiteout is a murder mystery set in the frozen tundra of Antarctica.  Well, it's not so much a mystery as it is a process of elimination, since there's (maybe) thirty actors in the whole film.  Kate Beckinsale plays the part of a US Marshall, whose back story the script assumes you want to learn more about.  How should we learn about her?  Colorful dialogue?  Supporting characters talking behind her back?  No, let's use the old repetitive partial flashbacks trick.  That's always a crowd pleaser!  As a viewer, there is nothing I like more than seeing the same flashback over and over again, until the script allows us to see the final little bit that explains why the flashback is supposed to be important.  It's not annoying at all, even when you can summarize the scene with one sentence.

You might be wondering why Kate Beckinsale took this role, since there are neither vampires nor werewolves in the script.  Well, at least not in the final script.  I think she took the role to flex her acting skills, because most of the leading roles she gets have her thrown into skintight leather outfits, bending in pleasing, if surely uncomfortable, directions.  This must seem like a vacation for her.  All parkas, all the time?  Not only does she force attention away from her body and toward her acting, she gets to eat whatever she wants during shooting because nobody looks sexy in a parka.  Of course, the director manages to squeeze in a little T & A at the very beginning, as Beckinsale returns from finding the dead body and decides to take a shower.  I would like to point out that most people would wear warmer undergarments in the Antarctic than she does.  Oh, well.  It's a personal choice.

Sorry, I got sidetracked.  Where was I...?  Oh yeah, the plot.  Well, the movie actually begins with a scene set in the 1950s, aboard a Russian plane.  The plane crashes in Antarctica after the passengers and pilots have a shootout over...well, that's not explained right away.  Instead, we have a murder mystery that somehow involves these moronic Russians.  Seriously, how stupid can they be?  Obviously, there is something valuable on the plane; the camera gazes at one of the passenger's boxes too long for it to be accidental.  There's nothing valuable in Antarctica, and it's nowhere near Russia or any Communist country, so these guys must have brought the valuables from somewhere else and then decided to...what?  Take them to a Russian Antarctic observation station, where they can cash in their valuables for...um...new parkas?  Maybe they were leaving the Russian station, heading to Moscow or something.  But where did the valuables come from?  Maybe they're not going or coming from Antarctica, but are just cutting across it as a shortcut to another Communist country.  Well, that won't work, since none are located in the southern hemisphere.  Like I said: morons.

Obviously, the mystery Russian valuables are the motivation for the murder.  Otherwise, the Russians in the beginning make no damn sense whatsoever.  The only question is who the murderer could be...and whether he is working alone or not.  That gives us only a few people to consider.  Is the murderer Tom Skerritt, Beckinsale's best friend on base and the base's longtime doctor?  Perhaps it is Columbus Short, who acts as a friendly sidekick to this murder mystery.  Well, no, he gets beat up.  Hmm...is it Gabriel Macht, an inspector from the UN whose arrival coincides suspiciously with some of the killer's assaults?  Seriously, I'm pretty sure they would have had a flashing neon sign reading "Suspect" around his neck if they could.  Or is it Alex O'Laughlin, a jerk pilot that can fly himself out of Antarctica if he found, say, something Russian and valuable?

It doesn't matter.  You won't care.  Sure, the plot is a little dumb, and it probably should have omitted the Russian beginning because, let's face it, stumbling across the wreckage of the plane is all we really need to know about how it got there (hint: it crashed).  It's not a fatally stupid premise, though.  The problem is what makes this movie unique: the setting.  The killer is forced to disguise himself in a parka, mask, hood and goggles...just like every character that goes outside in this film.  The wind and snow often buffet the camera, making the characters indistinguishable for the viewers, which makes a chase scene a lot less suspenseful.  When you can't tell which parka has the killer in it, you stop caring pretty quickly.  Speaking of missing the last boat to Suspense Island, both the killer and good guys have to tether themselves to guide ropes when they are outside for safety reasons.  While logical, it seriously limits where the killer and heroes can run to.  "I have to get away from this killer!  ...As long as 'away' is just further down this guide rope."

This movie is just bad.  It's not necessarily the actors' fault, but they don't really help their cause.  The script, taken from a Greg Rucka comic, is dull, at best.  The ending is anticlimactic, although unintentionally funny.  Okay, I'll spoil it for you: Tom Skerritt, the ringleader of everything, is found out, and decides to walk out into the tundra to freeze to death with Beckinsale's approval.  Probably not what her superior wants to read on the official report.  Hilarious.  The real problem is the setting.  In a book, the environment can become a character and really add to a story.  Some movies can make the outdoors absolutely frightening.  This movie just feels a little clammy.