The only things I can say I liked were the few minor characters above and the magic itself. Elijah Wood's "twist" was weak as hell, it's like they didn't know what else to do with him, the Witch Queen wondrously drops her strong Celtic/Scottish accent despite having been technically dead the past 800 years and decides to not try and instantly kill the guy who nearly ended her at the start, the fight scenes were short and dumb (WQ makes two guys go boom with flies in this movie, but she can only scratch Diesel's cheek?!), and they sequel baited!!! Nothing pisses me off more than when a crappy movie tries to sequel bait. Then there is the ending, I was okay with this film until that crap ending. Instead we're left with Rose Leslie's weird borderline romantic interest, thank god they never kissed cause the hug was awkward enough. The young witch from the plane was interesting and clearly established the witch vs hunter ideas, she could've made for a awesome young apprentice. All four of those actors bring a strong sense of character to the roles, but we never get enough of them to find out more. They're there to tempt us and intrigue us, but then most get offed in truly pathetic ways. We got introduced to fascinating characters: a blind warlock who sells hallucination bug-cakes, a mad zealot who lures children to his backyard, a young witch traveling for her first time to NY, and we have this bearded guy who throws around magic like he's it's nothing, but none of these characters ever get fleshed out. There is so much talking about stuff in this movie, explaining every little thing without fleshing out anything. I think the beginning is phenomenal until the narration starts in, that's when things take a nose dive into exposition town. I was super excited to see it and was practically skipping to the theater going in, but by the end I was seriously considering just walking out of it. And few times I did walk through sets, they were incredible, the witches lair had so many real dead trees, ans sculpted trees, it was really impressive but i don't think it comes across on the screen.
The redhead girl and the big guy stole the show. It's a shame the movie didn't make a bigger slash, I think there was some great ideas there. I worked with a great team, we had a lot of fun. I rememebr i got to listen to the raw takes of Michael Caine reading that introduction, it made no sense, and it was clear it made no sense to Michael either, but he read it numerous times like a champ anyways. He was always grunting and he had many unintelligible takes. He constantly mumbled his lines, so editorial was not his biggest fan. In editorial, on the monitors, he would often have red eyes, so not sure if those were touched up by vfx. I remember Vince was very difficult to work with, and when he did show up he would show up late. I was in editorial, so i was not on set that much but i heard stories from my co workers. I could definitely understand some people not enjoying it and even summarizing it as a bad movie because it doesn't excel in enough regards for them, but I would say that some of the reactions I'm seeing to it are exaggerating the movie's traits and execution. Although not complex, I found the story fun to follow. I went in hoping to see Vin Diesel play out his inner DnD geek and I got that. I didn't really see it fail hard on any level, I think that it has passable aspects and the things that I thought were good would push it from a neutral to a more positive perception on my part. Ultimately, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the movie is bad. There were a two plot holes/confusing bits at the end I don't feel good about, but I didn't notice anything that didn't add up before that. The 37th Dolan twist wasn't a big shock and had its hints, but they were hints and not a big shining flashlight and the twist wasn't unbelievable chain stands out as a big plot hole). Chloe's insertion into the story and partnership was a bit shoved, but I wouldn't say forced. I found the action cinematography/editing to be much better than actions movies such as Agent 47, Transporter Refuled, Underworld+sequels and thought there was a good job at constructing a nice aesthetic for the witches. I wouldn't call it a fresh tomato, but I would say that it's perfectly fine in a salad/sandwich and definitely not rotten. I would say that the movie is somewhere between okay and good and would ultimately recommend it. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie and was surprised to see that it's received such a seemingly negative reception.
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