Il settimo figlio

As usual, Jeff bridges is wonderful in everything he does. The rest of the cast is very good, and the movie provides 2 hours of entertainment. Don't take anything seriously, an don't try to analyze anything. Just enjoy yourself.

This is the first is a Joseph Delany trilogy "Wardstone Chronicles." Based on the book "The Spooks Apprentice" by Joseph Delaney.

The last of the protectors keeping us from the evil that witches do has a habit of having his apprentices dispatched by the opposition. So now he must reach down to the bottom of the barrel and find a seventh son three places, last apprentice. No time for training it's off to get the bad queen-witch. We go along on the adventure and encounter all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, and all things wise and wonderful.

In a movie where people and creatures have a tendency to be dispatched or ride off into the sunset, you have to wonder who will be in the sequels?

Part of the fun is recognizing the actors There is Kevin Flynn from TRON (1982) See how many actors you can find.

The Blu-Ray has: Alternate Ending Deleted/Alternate Scenes The Making of "Seventh Son" The legend and lore of the Seventh son Visual Effects Gallery.

I have read a few books from the Spook's Apprentice series and I can tell you with certainty that this movie is very far from the plot there. Worst than that, every decent scene in the film is in the trailer and the rest are just filling. No real fights, no real drama, the acting was abysmal, but it pales in comparison with the script, which seems to be have been written by a banker worrying he is giving the world too much. It is a horribly bad film that I advise against watching.

The books themselves are a sort of Harry Potterish thing for children, replacing Hogwarts with a grumpy fighter against the creatures of the dark and Harry with a rare "seventh son of a seventh son" that is traditionally employed in this "spook" business. There were several things that went against this series becoming very popular: first is the term "spook" which in the US was controversial due to some colloquial racial meaning, so they changed the name with which they published the book into The Last Apprentice. Then the name of the author, Joseph Delaney, which is pretty common and easy to confuse with other writers named Delaney.

However the plot of the books is easy to follow, interesting, sometimes engaging; Delaney had just as much right for fame as J.K. Rowling. Alas, this film pretty much cements his failure. Too bad.

Hollywood has of late had a lousy track record of fantasy action epics, and 'Seventh Son', which arrives just in time to close off the year, is yet another blemish to add to that list. Delayed nearly a year while its production company Legendary switched studios, this Universal release assembles A-listers Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore with 'The Chronicles of Narnia' star Ben Barnes for an expensive big- screen adaptation of the first book of Joseph Delaney's 'The Wardstone Chronicles' against tawdry sets and second-rate visual effects.

We aren't usually that critical of a film's production design, but there is just something awfully dreary about the widescreen world of Russian director Sergei Bodrov's debut English-language feature. Indeed, the only human city where any of the action takes place looks like it was rented right after the cast and crew of 'Game of Thrones' abandoned it, while the mountain fortress which principal villain Mother Malkin makes her not-so-humble abode seems like it was designed for some 1960s B-grade science-fiction movie. The ugliness of these green-screened sets is even more obvious against the occasional picturesque Canadian backdrops, which cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel ably captures to evoke a majestic 'Lord of the Rings' feel.

Alas the unattractive visuals are just one of the litany of complaints that you are likely to have. What production designer Dante Ferretti fails to accomplish in sets, visual effects designer John Dykstra also fails to make up for in post-production. Whether the oversized orcs or shape-shifting witches (Moore and her fellow consort Djimon Hounsou transform into dragons, while others transform into creatures with reptilian-like tongues or Hindu deity-like arms), the CG effects for what was once intended to be a franchise tentpole are both unimaginatively conceived and poorly executed, even more appalling when viewed in post-conversion 3D or worse on an IMAX screen.

And yet to fault its technical shortcomings seems at least a tad unfair, in particular because the movie's problems are much more fundamental. For one, despite boasting an impressive team of screenwriters including Matt Greenberg, Charles Leavitt and Steven Knight, there is hardly a story here. Without any context, we start with a younger Jeff Bridges imprisoning the Queen Witch, Mother Malkin (Moore), up in the mountains. The impending dawn of the once-a-century blood moon lends her strength to break out of her metal confines, and in an early sequence, confront her jailer Master Gregory (Bridges) and his not-so-lucky apprentice Billy (Game of Thrones' Kit Harington). When that reunion ends with Billy dead, Gregory sets out recruiting a new "seventh son of a seventh son", Thomas (Barnes), who so happens to be suffering from elliptic visions of Gregory and Malkin.

In narrative jargon, Thomas is The Chosen One, the anointed protégé who under the tutelage of Master Gregory will become his very equal and take his place among the elite group of knights who call themselves the Falcon. There is no doubt during the movie, even when his life seems to be in mortal danger, that Thomas will live to see the death of Mother Malkin and perhaps even the light of another sequel. There is also no doubt, despite Gregory's initial reservations, that Thomas will be ready within the span of just seven days to defeat the evil that Malkin possesses within her goth-like getup. And for that matter, there is no doubt that Thomas will find true love in Alice (Swedish actress Alicia Vikander), a witch whom he rescues from the town mob and who turns out to be the daughter of Malkin's younger sister.

The plotting is as straight-forward as it gets, and functions no more than to connect the numerous noisy action sequences together. There is also hardly any character to speak of, each one of them leading or supporting mere stock types that you would be familiar with from countless other such fantasy flicks. The latter is also why we feel sorry for Bridges, a fine actor who's played the grizzled veteran one too many times of late in 'R.I.P.D.' and 'The Giver' and is here trying not to sound condescending while delivering lame one-liners with a distinct twang. Moore too is an equally fine actress in her own right utterly wasted in a thankless role, and together, what chemistry the pair had in 'The Big Lebowski' is sorely missing in their first reunion since.

If the decision to cast two acclaimed actors to lend legitimacy to the project does nothing to help the film, the casting of its younger actors also fails to do it any favours. Barnes tries his best to project fresh-eyed enthusiasm, but the late decision to cast the 31- year-old actor in the role of a 17-year-old – instead of 'The Hunger Games'' Sam Claflin is ultimately a misguided one. He also shares too little chemistry with Vikander, who looks appropriately beguiling but is little much else. Barnes and Vikander are also stuck in an awkward romance which is bound to inspire some unintended giggles especially for a sequence where the two supposedly exchange loving glances while lying together in bed.

There is hardly anything fascinating about 'Seventh Son', whose title belongs better in a tongue twister than in an expensive and extravagant swords-and-dragons epic. Yes, there is good reason indeed why former studio Warner Bros had dragged its feet in releasing this, and what a relief it must have felt that it need not try to justify why it decided to do so when it already has an entire trilogy in 'The Hobbit'. No matter that the director is a two-time Academy Award nominee for his Russian films 'Prisoner of the Mountains' and 'Mongol', his Hollywood foray is an embarrassing misstep that he would no doubt want to be forgotten as soon as possible. He needn't worry; to spare yourself the agony of sitting through yet another disappointing fantasy wanna-be epic, go find any one of the other sons and just avoid the Seventh.

It isn't easy to make a good fantasy film – as borne out by Seventh Son, which has suffered a particularly arduous journey to the silver screen. Originally slated for release in February 2013, its visual effects house went bankrupt and its studio, Legendary Pictures, parted ways with distributor Warner Bros. The film that's finally stumbling into cinemas almost two full years later (courtesy of Universal Pictures) should be an unmitigated disaster. Surprisingly, it's not. The film isn't exactly great, but it's a largely entertaining romp that's more inspired by than strictly faithful to Joseph Delaney's series of bestselling books.

Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) is the seventh son of a seventh son: a rare genetic lineage that sets him on the path to becoming a Spook a.k.a., a slayer of the myriad evil creatures that haunt the land. He becomes the apprentice of grizzled, alcohol-addled John Gregory (Jeff Bridges), shortly after Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), an evil witch, escapes her earthly prison to claim the world as her own. With only a week to go before the blood moon rises, Tom trains with Gregory but finds himself distracted by the charms of Alice (Alicia Vikander) – a mysterious young lady with a few secrets of her own.

While hardly groundbreaking in any way, the story unfolds with unexpected punch. Tom's story – one in which he comes of age and comes into his own – is accompanied by plenty of action sequences, courtesy of bone-crunching battles between men and other men (and women) who turn into soaring, swooping, fire-breathing dragons. Tom tumbles over a cliff to avoid a pursuing monster, Gregory battles a gigantic bear, and wraiths of smoke and despair trail after the Spook and his apprentice as they make their way through a dark, brooding forest.

It helps, too, that the film is leavened by a welcome bite of humour. Seventh Son doesn't take itself as deadly seriously as some of its brethren in the fantasy genre do. That's why Gregory plunges into a bar brawl armed with nothing more than his flagon of beer, and Tom is allowed to make quite a few cutting remarks about his purported mentor that are heartily returned with interest.

Ardent fans of Delaney's books should be warned: Seventh Son riffs on elements of the novels rather than staying strictly true to them. For one thing, Tom is considerably older in the film. Most noticeably, Malkin is a very different character than she is on the page. She's given more depth and complexity here, her vile behaviour explained, if not strictly justified by, her past entanglements with Gregory. It's actually quite nice to see a fantasy world that doesn't simply perpetuate the trope of the wicked witch, but instead dreams up characters that fall along a broad spectrum of morality.

Barnes is well-cast as Tom, holding his own as both a hero and quasi-romantic lead. He shares a sweet, though not particularly electric, chemistry with Vikander who is, thankfully, called upon to do more than simper and flirt. But there are considerably more thrills to be had with Bridges, who manages to fold charm, menace and darkness into Gregory; and Moore, who's clearly having plenty of fun cutting her way through scenes as a whirlwind of madness and malevolence.

By all accounts, Seventh Son should really have been an outright flop. It may still play as such to any fantasy aficionados who are demanding greatness on the level of The Lord Of The Rings. But, for pretty much everyone else, Seventh Son is an entertaining, undemanding film with some good ideas and a lot of fun moments. It's not a particularly great example of its genre but, given its troubled production history, that it's not completely execrable is probably nothing short of a miracle.