Review of The Last Witch Hunter (2015) by Filipeneto — 02 May 2020

I approached this film with caution and low expectations. However, I ended up concluding that it's not as bad as I thought it could be. In fact, despite being far from brilliant, its a very decent action and adventure film that will entertain us quite well, if we dont give excessive relevance to the problems that arise.

Everything is centred on a man who cannot die, the result of a curse he was the victim of in the Middle Ages, when he set fire to the sacred tree of the queen of witches and tried to kill her. He has lived an unusually long human life in the service of the Catholic Church, and has been busy chasing witches and magicians who violate magical laws (does it sound enough like Harry Potter?).

The film stars Vin Diesel, a muscular veteran of action films, who already knows what he has to do and does it without any problems. He is not even close to my favorite actor and sometimes he has the dramatic expressiveness of an apple (I am being nice), but he is not one of the worst around. In this film, he even does a satisfying job. Next to him is an impeccable Michael Caine, making extensive use of traditional British impassivity, a good Rose Leslie, an imposing Olafur Darri Olafsson and even Julie Engelbrecht, who does what she really has to do. We can still see Elijah Wood, who looks surprisingly well in a cassock but does not seem to know how he ended up in this film, disappearing quickly. Did he make a mistake in the studio?

As expected, the film has a lot of regular CGI but does not bring anything truly spectacular. The action scenes are also good but relatively mild. Of course, everything seems false, of course the film does not have a hint of credibility, but if the audience only wants to entertain their spare time, I think that is enough. The sets, costumes, cinematography and soundtrack are also not particularly worth mentioning.