Season of the Witch

Great song. Bad movie.

Set in Medieval times, Nicolas Cage stars as Behmen - a knight who loves killing and marauding, until he is lead into an attack on women and children.

After that horrible incident, Behmen and his buddy, Felson (Ron Perlman) decide to desert the army, but get captured and forced into transporting a mysterious young girl (Claire Foy) to trial for being The Black Witch who has caused what we call The Black Plague.

Is she a witch?

Does she float?

Season of the Witch is a bad movie in many ways, but the worst sin committed by director Dominic Sena is making a dull movie. You would think with all of the sword fights, witchcraft, and attacks by wild wolves, Season of the Witch would get your blood pumping, but it the movie is lifeless and uninteresting.

The big fight scenes are so poorly shot by Sena they are rendered meaningless and can only be followed when Cage or Perlman makes the most cliché of maneuvers.

Each character is given a modicum of backstory, most of which turns out to be unimportant, since anyone with any background could be inserted without any change to the story.

And, writer Bragi Schut provides wooden, stilted dialogue that can't be saved by his lame attempts at humor. The audience I saw the movie with only laughed at how bad the lines were, not how "funny" they were supposed to be.

I hope Cage pays off that IRS bill before he has taken so many well paying stinkers like this that he no longer has a career.

Season of the Witch is rated PG-13 for thematic elements, violence and disturbing content.