The Last Witch Hunter
In Breck Eisner’s The Last Witch Hunter, the only way to end the tyrannical reign of the Witch Queen is to destroy her 800-plus-year-old preserved heart, a task Kaulder (Vin Diesel) attempts to accomplish with his uber-creatively named flame-coated sword, the “Witch Slayer” (and no, this film is not a comedy). Now, I feel it is my journalistic duty, with a MacBook keyboard as my sword and Starbucks house blend coffee as the fuel to its flames, to puncture right through any possible merit this film has as the genesis of a series.
To say the film is a disappointment isn’t quite fair, as I question the sanity of any person whose hopes were raised by a film centered around Diesel playing an immortal witch hunter who begrudgingly protects modern-day New York City from black magic. However, it’s additionally inconsiderate for me to send such venomous diction in the film’s direction without breaking down what exactly made The Last Witch Hunter an unequivocal waste of 106 minutes. So let’s begin.
While many movie franchises are based off already best-selling works (Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings), The Last Witch Hunter’s entire script, believe it or not, is inspired by Diesel’s own Dungeons & Dragons character, Melkor, who is, you guessed it, a witch hunter. It’s a concept that no one besides Diesel and writer Cory Goodman asked for, and one that fails to warrant the $90 million budget Lionsgate allocated. Even with the relatively short run time, the film drags on, with a sleep-inducing middle section that could only be fended off by my own constant blinking and occasional face-slapping.
Humor is called upon to mask the action-lacking moments of the film, but the jokes are contrived softballs aimed at winning over and relating to a young demographic. Examples include jokes based on Dolan XXXVI (Michael Caine), a member of an order of priests tasked with advising Kaulder, refusing to give up pen and paper for an iPad and relating to Kaulder’s sexual escapades because, get ready for it, he wasn’t always a priest … L-O-L!
However, it’s not like the action itself is anything to be praised, filled with predictably gory battles between Kaulder and various witches and warlocks, and driven by underwhelming CGI. The visuals are jarring instead of stimulating, turning what should be terrific, triumphant battle scenes into headache-inducing, unclear sequences that caused my friend to turn to me and whisper, “Am I tripping right now?” No, friend, you’re not tripping, but if this film were indeed the sort of experience induced by a bad trip, psychedelic drug use would be lower than The Last Witch Hunter’s pending Rotten Tomatoes rating.
Perhaps most unsatisfactory is Diesel’s performance as the titular character. At times, Diesel’s acting seems like that of a friend you cast at the last minute in your high school film project. While on a crashing plane, Kaulder engages in a robotic dialogue with a witch who possesses an item necessary for him to save the plane and carries the conversation with the passion of a corpse. Equally painful is his need to insert one-line catchphrases, which causes him to inexcusably miss an opportunity to kill the Witch Queen because, before striking her with his “Witch Slayer” sword, he must utter a phrase about how the best part of him living for 800 years is that he gets to kill her twice. In terms of doing things twice, I’d rather face the mighty Kaulder and his glorious sword with no more than my scrawny 5-foot-10, 140-pound frame and a stick than rewatch The Last Witch Hunter.
The film’s ending insinuates that those involved with the making of The Last Witch Hunter expect a sequel and perhaps an entire series revolving around Kaulder’s Dungeons & Dragons-inspired universe. In reality, not even the Illuminati-powered black magic of Hollywood’s higher-ups could save The Last Witch Hunter from being the first, last and only installment of a franchise that is dead on arrival.
