Season of the Witch

I have to be very forgiving with most of the "genre" movies I watch, otherwise I wouldn’t get through three-quarters of them. Fortunately, all of the movies I watched while researching Legends of Steel helped to build my tolerance of B and C -grade movies.  So, despite no local reviews of Season of the Witch (it's almost always a bad sign when the movie doesn't even warrant a critics screening) I went to check it out.

The story is about a pair of disillusioned soldiers, who after a senseless massacre of women and children in the Holy Land (in one of the cheesiest battle montages I have ever seen), decide to leave the crusade and return home. One is a knight played by Nicholas Cage. The other, is a mercenary played by Ron Perlman.  On their way home they become involved in a witch trial at a village suffering from a plague.  The two men are drafted into transporting the girl accused of witchcraft, by wagon to a distant abbey where she can be properly tried and executed by an order of Monks who specialize in the handling of witches.  

Our two anti-heroes are accompanied on their quest by another soldier, a fanatical  priest, a thief, and an altar boy- all they need now is a gruff Dwarf and a Elven Wizard.

From that point it becomes the all too familiar linear adventure, with a few surprises.   For me the film fluctuated from lame to not so bad. I’ve never been a fan of Cage, but if I can sit through Kevin Costner as Robin Hood, I can sit through this.  

Ron Perlman does the big, gruff, badass guy that he always does, so no new ground there.   If you catch a matinée, Season of the Witch isn't a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon, but I'm sure it will be out of theaters before you can blink twice, which means you'll probably have to wait for it to show up on USA network.