Seventh Son 2014

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Sometimes you get halfway through a movie and you can't believe that what you're seeing made its way from Los Angeles or someone's Los Angeles computer to where you're sitting. Read more

Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press: There's a fine line between charm and cheese in fantasy epics, and movies as silly and overwrought as Seventh Son only help to illustrate just how hard it is to hit the right tone. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: I was disappointed that there were no fire-breathing mummy ninjas from space, but you have to save something for the sequel. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: An over-designed, under-conceived fantasy epic in which even topnotch contributors can't get the chemistry right, leaving Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore looking silly. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Seventh Son is brisk and unpretentious, though the fact that these two qualities can be considered remarkable probably says more about the state of modern genre filmmaking than it does about the movie itself. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: "Seventh Son" delivers exactly what it promises: Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore slumming in a laughably generic sword-and-sorcery almost-epic. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: It's a loud, joyless mess. Read more

Kyle Anderson, Entertainment Weekly: Once the plot dominoes are arranged in an overlong series of setups, Seventh Son ends up being a movie about walking, interrupted occasionally by a battle against a mythological monster. Read more

Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter: Son of a dud. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: I know it's early, but "Seventh Son" may actually be the worst movie of the year. It will most certainly be a contender. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: No masterpiece, but a welcome February surprise with a lively cast and rugged action. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Obviously, this is not a particularly serious movie -- there's one scene of happy villagers leading a witch off to execution that feels remarkably like a "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" outtake -- but neither is it sloppy. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The stars shine, but the special effects are strictly fantasy-film assembly line, with hardly a spark of inspiration. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Even on paper, the latest February throwaway, "Seventh Son," sounds like a bad idea ... Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: Seventh Son may try to harness alchemy and witchcraft, but sadly, there's no magic here. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Impressive set design and visuals, excessive CGI, and a loud score from Marco Beltrami can't fully compensate for bland character development and a predictable narrative that rushes along on a linear trajectory. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: "Seventh Son" moves at a fairly quick pace and has a sense of humor about itself. That doesn't mean it's thrilling, or funny. Just that it's a quickly forgotten pile of junk. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Why does this movie exist? And what the hell are A-list actors like Moore and Bridges doing in something that seems so clearly destined to perplex insomniac Starz viewers several weeks from now? Read more

Thomas Lee, San Francisco Chronicle: At least Moore has not played a character like Malkin in recent memory. The same cannot be said for Bridges, whose flawed, alcoholic hero shtick is starting to wear thin. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Nothing here is particularly fresh, but watching it is like seeing a slice of familiar art reworked with a colorful new swatch of Crayolas. Deep? No. Thoughtful? No. A thigh-slapping good time? Oh, yes. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Even in 3-D and shot in the mountains of British Columbia, the film is a flat experience, with an incongruity between its big-budget ambitions and ho-hum impact. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: A strong contender for worst movie of 2015. Read more

James Rocchi, TheWrap: "Seventh Son" tells a story of dragons, witches, ghosts and ogres, but the most fantastic thing about it is the idea that someone thought this lumpy, bumpy and swollen sack of tired tropes and cluttered CGI would attract audiences. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: The dialogue in Seventh Son is dismal. The plotting is awkward. Nothing much works as storytelling. But even those problems are overshadowed by the accents -- the source of much of the hilarity. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Seventh Son is thoroughly ill-conceived, a pale imitation of its more adventurous and breathtaking brethren. Read more

Simon Abrams, Village Voice: Jeff Bridges's abysmally campy performance may be the worst thing about disposable sword-and-sorcery fantasy Seventh Son, but it's also the only memorable thing. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: A strange movie that manages to be both ridiculous and bland, its chief point of interest is the spectacle of a great actor caught in career decline. Read more