I decided that I wanted to flashback to 2014 and review one of the movies that showed potential but ultimately succumbed to YA overload. YA overload (n): an excessive amount of content related to young adult fiction.
Rundown: This movie is loosely based on the novel "The Spook’s Apprentice" by Joseph Delaney. The plot of the film revolves around the Queen Mother Malkin (played by Julianne Moore), Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), and Tom (Ben Barnes), the Seventh Son. Master Gregory is a monster hunter that is also known as a spook (side-eye for a possible offensive term) who recruits Tom in his quest to save the world against Mother Malkin's evil army. Tom has prophetic (deus ex machina) visions that assist him throughout the movie in his and Gregory's quest.
Review: This is a decent movie with great action scenes. The premise is cute and I really like the amount of detail that went into the movie. This is, at least, an original concept (which few movies have recently). Even though it is reminiscent of the recent attempts to capitalize on YA novels by adapting them to film, the actual work that went into this film was decent enough. The actors played well of each other and pulled the viewer in deeper to the fantasy world. While the movie relies heavily on special effects, it works within the world and it doesn’t detract from the semi well crafted story. It’s an adequate movie on all levels but not impressive enough to merit the franchise the studios where trying to setup. I am glad to see that at least Julianne Moore has moved on to more successful franchies such as Hunger Games and Kingsman. Hopefully Jeff Bridges and Ben Barnes will follow in her footsteps.
Verdict: Stasis Mode (3/5)
