You have to admire a movie which takes a gold-star cast (Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Alicia Vikander) and creates such an unpolishable turd. This dull-as-ditchwater fantasy romp from Sergei Bodrov, director of Mongol: The Rise to Power of Genghis Khan, was intended to launch a lucrative sword-and-sorcery franchise based on Joseph Delaney’s fantasy novel series The Wardstone Chronicles. Instead, it lingered in post-production hell before tanking spectacularly in America. No wonder. A bewhiskered Bridges “argle-wargle-fargles” his way through the incoherent dialogue as a medieval “spook” locked in eternal combat with Moore’s she-devil, who fails to be either alluring or interesting despite a nice line in feathery collars and the ability to turn into a flying lizard. Meanwhile, apprentice spook Tom (Narnia’s Ben Barnes) makes saucer-eyes at Vikander’s witchy temptress, who is introduced in a scene stolen directly from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The action lumbers hither and yon through endless cod-gothic 3D CG set pieces, but to no avail. Indeed, the film’s only possible point of interest was whether its pre-Oscar US release would nix (or “Norbit”) Moore’s chances of winning a statuette. It didn’t – making it of no interest whatsoever.
