Seventh Son (2014)
Directed by Sergei Bodrov
John Gregory, who is a seventh son of a seventh son and also the local spook, has protected the country from witches, boggarts, ghouls and all manner of things that go bump in the night. However John is not young anymore, and has been seeking an apprentice to carry on his trade. Most have failed to survive. The last hope is a young farmer's son named Thomas Ward.
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The name, of course, references that time when Eddie Murphy was primed to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 2006's Dreamgirls but instead came up empty-handed, with one theory being that his critically reviled comedy Norbit was in theaters during the voting period and Academy members were too embarrassed to mark his name on the ballot.
For rising stars such as Ben Barnes (dashing Prince Caspian in the "Narnia" films), Kit Harington (dishy Jon Snow of the Night's Watch in "Game of Thrones") and the Swedish actress Alicia Vikander (the lovely opposite Mads Mikkelsen in "A Royal Affair"), it's early enough in their careers that all will be either forgotten or forgiven.
With his awkwardly guttural deep voice, Bridges plays Master Gregory: the mentor to his new apprentice Thomas (Ben Barnes from “The Chronicles of Narnia” films and 2009’s “Dorian Gray”).
The young lead/hero Tom Ward (Brit actor Ben Barnes from the Narnia franchise) is, as the title suggests, a seventh son of a seventh son.
Barnes (of the Narnia films) is the titular seventh son, Tom Ward, who is yanked out of his reasonably comfortable, albeit stifling, teenage rut and away from his beloved mother (Williams) by a shaggy, reclusive warrior (Bridges, looking like a renegade from the Battle of the Five Armies).
Probably no young actor could have invested Tom with sufficient charisma to make “Seventh Son” seem like something other than one more dismal modern retread of the sort of boys’ adventure yarns Ray Harryhausen used to turn out with stop-motion creatures, but bland Barnes (Prince Caspian in the “Narnia” pictures) certainly doesn’t do the trick.
Barnes ("The Chronicles of Narnia" series) and Vikander have a certain undeniable chemistry, though their love story is brief.
The use of 3-D and surround sound is among the best I've seen in the past few years and triple Oscar winner Dante Ferretti ("The Aviator", "Hugo") is the genius behind the film's excellent production design.