More style over substance in ‘Last Witch Hunter,’ and that’s okay

From the first shot, this film knows its environment and it works. Not for a second do I doubt the believability of world the filmmakers have created, nor the amazing detail in every last costume, hair and makeup design, weapon, prop or set piece. It’s all beautifully done. Combined with surprisingly impressive special effects and supernatural battles, this could have been one of the big action-adventure fantasy films of the year.

Unfortunately, the look did not deserve the clichéd, predictable and outdated plot it got. With the usual “only one can save the world” story, one-dimensional supporting characters with little development and Vin Diesel’s performance as the same hero he’s played in nearly everything in the past 10 years, this is a case of all style over no substance.

The modern world holds many secrets, but the most astounding secret of all is that witches still live amongst us. In this story, they’re vicious, supernatural creatures fixed on unleashing the Black Death upon the world.

Armies of witch hunters battled the unnatural enemy across the globe for centuries, including Kaulder (Diesel), a valiant warrior who managed to slay the all-powerful Queen Witch. In the last moments before her death, the Queen curses Kaulder with her own immortality, forever separating him from his beloved wife and daughter in the afterlife.

In 2015, Kaulder is the only one of his kind remaining, and he has spent centuries hunting down rogue witches, all while yearning for his long lost loved ones. However, unbeknownst to Kaulder, the Queen Witch’s followers are planning to resurrect her. Now, she seeks revenge on her killer causing an epic battle that will determine the survival of the human race. With the help of a priest (Elijah Wood) and a modern witch (Rose Leslie) opposed to the feud her kind prolonged, Kaulder takes on the queen determined to end her evil reign forever.

More than a supernatural fantasy flick, this movie seems like just another one of those cop shows set in New York. Somebody tried to kill someone else and now we have to find out who did it. Simple enough. But because the way it’s shot is so much more beautiful and overwhelming than a stereotypical cop show, a lot of the menial cop stuff looks more interesting. Much of Kaulder’s job seems to involve forensics: collecting, examining and interpreting dead flies, bloody fingerprints, soil samples and mystic runes written in window condensation.

If this were anyone else other than Vin Diesel, who knows how much worse of a supernatural schlep this would have been, because Diesel is not a great actor most of the time. He is just so nice and likeable as a person that you can’t help loving Diesel, even with his monotone delivery of silly lines in his barely audible mumble. To be fair, he does care about his role. He’s just not very good at acting it out.

The rest of the cast is pretty forgettable. Elijah Wood and Rose Leslie must have just needed the paycheck, because neither gives more than the bare minimum for passable performances. With the script they were handed, though, it’s not all their fault. No character has noteworthy development if any development at all. With cardboard cutout characters to work with, Wood and Leslie may have just done the best with what they had. Either way, it failed.

Not surprisingly, however, Michael Caine can do no wrong. I’m sure he’s just phoning it in too, but Caine loves to work, even when he’s been the same character in everything since 2003. His role as Kaulder’s previous priestly assistant is important to the plot considering it’s the attempted murder of Caine that gets the story moving. But then Caine is out of it for the rest of the story, neither doing anything nor even spouting advice rooting in all his wisdom as he usually does. If there was even 15 minutes more of Caine here instead of Wood or Leslie, this could be a completely different review.

However, the visuals save the movie from being a complete bore in every way. They’re creative, their quality is impressive, the attention to detail is astounding and most importantly they all make sense within the universe while all the battles are going on between Kaulder and the various witches and their queen.

The queen, portrayed by French actor Julie Engelbrecht, suffers from bland supernatural villain dialogue. But with the disturbing (in a good way) production design and art direction, the queen, the depiction of powers, spells, and curses, in general, elevate every scene with here. Adding in the striking cinematography that loves playing up the nighttime and shadows and unique execution of supernatural folklore, fantasy nerds will enjoy at least some of this rollercoaster production.

If you love Vin Diesel, supernatural thrillers, old-school fantasy and Michael Caine, then this is the movie for you. If none of that sounds good, see James Bond or Charlie Brown instead.

Glamour and Gothic blend seamlessly in ‘Crimson Peak’

If there was but one filmmaker who had a definitive style to every one of his or her movies, and that distinct look never disappointed regardless of good or bad the rest of the film was, that writer/director would be Guillermo del Toro.

From Europe during the Cold War in “Hellboy” to the Spanish countryside in “Pan’s Labyrinth,” from the seas surrounding Hong Kong at night in “Pacific Rim” to the mountains of Middle Earth in “The Hobbit” trilogy, del Toro delivers stunningly gorgeous films again and again.

And yet his most recent project, a gothic romantic horror movie that takes place in a crumbling mansion in northern England, may just be his most beautiful yet. But as a gothic romance, the story and characters are just as faithful representations of the time period’s most popular literature as the costumes, hair and makeup, sets and music.

It’s safe to say del Toro knows what he is doing.

After a family tragedy and with nothing to keep her in America, young aspiring author Edith (Mia Wasikowska) marries the charming and seductive Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). She soon finds herself swept away to his remote gothic mansion in the English hills with Lady Lucille (Jessica Chastain), Thomas’ alluring sister and protector of their family’s dark secrets.

Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, Edith soon discovers that her new home breathes, bleeds and remembers. Able to communicate with the dead since the death of her mother many years ago, Edith tries to decipher the mystery behind the ghostly visions that haunt the mansion. As she learns to confront the ghosts and comes closer to the truth, Edith may learn that true monsters are made of living flesh and blood.

Not only is it a great period-piece romance in its own right, but “Crimson Peak” pays homage to the gothic genre in every way. Half of this movie is Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe, delivering best of gothic horror in all its beauty and terror, never letting one outweigh the other. But the other half the other most popular literature of the Victorian era: Jane Austen’s idealistic romances with ballroom dances and strong, independent women.

Although many aspects of the story pay homage to the standards established by Poe and Austen, some parts take the outdated tropes and spins them around, not only make the characters more realistic but mocking the tropes that were once considered normal.

While in many older stories the woman is the prize and the men make sensual advances to win her, in “Crimson Peak” it is the man who is objectified while the women make the obvious passes and initiate the romances. And although it does work within the story, from the outside looking in it is done specifically to call attention to the outdated tropes of the very genre it is replicating. Plus, Tom Hiddleston is someone worth pining over.

Everyone in the cast acts the part by playing right into the genres. There is no slang and no contractions, and everyone speaks as if they were in a Shakespearean play. But besides sounding the part, everyone in the main cast looks the part in both their wardrobes and their demeanors. They look like aristocrats from the 1910s by how the wear their boots, three-pieces suits and multiple layered gowns and how they walk in them, work in them and even drink tea in them. Not once does anyone look or sound like their actors in 2015.

As more of a side note that would mostly appeal to the people of Western New York, the first 40 minutes of the movie takes place in Buffalo at the turn of the century. Now, of course they didn’t actually film any of the movie in Buffalo, but Edith’s father in the film is a contractor who owns the biggest architecture and construction company in Erie County. So throughout several of the Buffalo scenes, tabletop models of some of Buffalo’s still-standing old buildings appear occasionally and people from the area will recognize them immediately. Also, all the Americans in the Buffalo scenes do spot-on Western New York accents, so as a native of the area I give the film’s accuracy to that aspect a very high grade.

As the film makes a point of early on, this is not a horror film. It’s not about ghosts. There are ghosts in it and they are important to the plot, but it is not about them. “Ghosts are metaphors for the past,” Edith says within the first 20 minutes, and that’s just what makes “Crimson Peak” just a spooky film. There are scary moments and the atmosphere is chilling throughout, but it’s not horror in the “Halloween” or “Nightmare on Elm Street” sense. The ghosts make sure the real horror is in the living, not the dead.

Guillermo del Toro’s movies are a selected taste. The screenplays are great, but their often slower and more in depth than many like to handle. Every shot is gorgeous, every scene is set in a beautiful and believable world and the actors know their characters and play them well. But if you’re looking for a new Halloween classic, this probably isn’t it for you. But for anyone who loves Edgar Allen Poe and Victorian-era gothic stories, “Crimson Peak” is the epitome of gothic romance.