I liked the first teaser for Breck Eisner’s THE LAST WITCH HUNGER, but it was admittedly vague about the specifics of the plot. This one does a little better; we see that Vin is an immortal tasked with hunting witches (obviously), who finds himself teaming with a priest (seemingly aware of this “secret order”, like Tim Guinee’s character in VAMPIRES) and a “good witch” to fight the “the most powerful witches that have ever walked the earth” in contemporary NYC.
I like the team-up of Diesel, Elijah Wood, and Rose Leslie, way more than I like any of the shrouded-in-darkness supernatural goings-on on display. I have no problem with the action; like SAHARA, I’m sure this will have plenty of coherent, high-concept set-pieces that will have the same level of kick as Vin shotgunning a hole for himself into the chest of that monster. But the monsters and effects and such, at least at this stage in the game, look fairly typical and uneventful in this short form. The last thing anyone in this world needs is another 47 RONIN or SEVENTH SON, but some of the stuff here recalls those two dismal magic-fests (Vin’s A MAN APART-level joylessness isn’t helping things either).
Still, the idea of Vin, Wood, Leslie, and Michael Caine hunting witches in a big-budget movie is quite enough to get me into the theater, and this trailer isn’t breaking my resolve, so I suppose it’s a win on that front. But what do y’all think? Something worth looking forward to, or a CGI-filled crapfest unworthy of your time?
THE LAST WITCH HUNTER keeps Vin Diesel around forever on October 23rd, 2015.
