Story At The Movies: Season Of The Witch
Every so often, a movie comes along that so enrages all the major (and minor) print and online critics that their savagery toward said cinematic effort becomes a tsunami of revulsion deep enough to simply take my breath away. Of course I had to go see this latest Rogue/Relativity release to let you know it's a lot more fun that any review would let you know. It's the years first absolutely no-way-it-will-ever-get-any-nominations movie: "Season Of The Witch," starring the occasionally very good Nicolas Cage who is capable of much better work than here but is always fun to watch for his various goofy toupees and his delicious way with a truly clunky line of dialogue: "I think we're going to need more holy water!" Well, that got a laugh out of me in this latest sword and damsel in distress medieval blood and gore fest full of witches, demons, rotting corpses and a quest to deliver an allegedly witchy young girl to a priestly/monkish place of inquisition.
Roger Ebert groaned in his review: Crusaders in armor do battle with fierce desert tribesmen under the blazing sun. Heads are lopped off and roll across the plain. Horses whinny, women scream, children flee, warriors are disemboweled, limbs severed, dogs would bark if there were dogs. The horror!
Cage and his side-kick-in-mayhem Ron Perlman are both having some fun dispatching badguys by the hundred, while wearing that well-known weary actors look that always says to me: "Sure hope my check don't bounce - daddy needs new shoes!" My point in all this is that some movies just exist to waste 90 minutes of your time while you consume a $5 bag of popcorn. In this, "Season of the Witch" is successful and for mindless-action fans is jolly good fun in a gaggy-maggot sort of way. To all others who call themselves film critics: Please. A movie that delivers everything its poster promises shouldn't be taken to task because it's not an Oscar-contender. Very, very few are. "Season of the Witch" - 2.5 stars for head-rolling action and/or demonic rotting corpse fans.
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