Mike McCahill 

Seventh Son review – a mock-epic waste of expertise, money and talent

Kung fu Tartars, vengeful Vishnus, sets designed by Dante Ferretti and even Oscar winner Julianne Moore can’t save this dubious and daft 3D disaster
  
  

Julianne Moore in Seventh Son
Shape-shifting dragon lady … Julianne Moore Photograph: PR

Every so often, Hollywood relocates key talent to the wilds for the express purpose of chucking millions of dollars over a cliff. Here’s one such occasion: a 3D mock-epic in which beard-and-scenery-chewing witch-hunter Jeff Bridges mentors third-choice chosen one Ben Barnes to slay shape-shifting dragon lady Julianne Moore. Director Sergey Bodrov opts for mindless overkill, stocking every Dante Ferretti-designed set with kung fu Tartars and vengeful Vishnus, and hoping we’ll be too psyched or numbed to notice the dubious white-blando-puts-minorities-to-the-sword subtext. It’s lively and daft, and you find yourself wondering: all this expertise, and the best anybody could think to do with it was this?

 

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