The Curator of Schlock #215 by Jeff Shuster

The Last Witch Hunter

Time to even the playing field.

We’re down two-for-two when it comes to witches with our last two movies. It’s time we started fighting back.

And who better to do this than the Yul Brynner of our day, Vin Diesel? Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s just the star of XXX, The Fast and the Furious, and The Chronicles of Riddick. Will lightning strike again? Let’s find out as I cover 2015’s The Last Witch Hunter from director Breck Eisner.

The movie begins in medieval times with a bunch of knights hunting for some evil entity called the Witch Queen. Apparently, she wants to spread a deadly plague across Europe because she hates what men are doing to the world with their stone castles and what not.

And let me tell you, this witch is a hag.

And she’s got a coven of witches and/or goblins working for her.

They make short work of these knights with their evil magic. She makes locusts erupt out of one poor sap. But one knight perseveres: Kaulder (Vin Diesel). He drives a fiery iron sword through her heart, but not before she curses him with immortality.

Ummmmm. That doesn’t sound like much of a curse to me.

I guess his wife and daughter were killed and he wanted to join them in the afterlife. Alas, he now has to wander the Earth forever.

Fast forward to modern time and it seems that a truce has been struck with witches. They can practice magic as long as they don’t use it against humans. Witches are apparently not human. Who knew? An organization called The Order of the Axe and Cross operates out of the Vatican ,in case any witch hunting is needed. And guess who is the top witch hunter? That’s right. It’s Kaulder. The Church provides priests with the title of Dolans. They serve as assistants to Kaulder…or are they supervisors…or partners?

I can’t keep any of this straight! Was this based on one of those graphic novels I’ve never heard of because comic book stores scare the living daylights out of me? Seriously, it’s like swimming in a sea of arrested development. Just say no. So the 36th Dolan is played by Michael Caine who soon retires. If you ever wanted to see a movie starring Vin Diesel and Michael Caine, this is the movie for you. A young Dolan played by Elijah Wood replaces him. If you ever wanted to see a movie starring Vin Diesel and Elijah Wood, this is the movie for you.

The Last Witch Hunter is definitely a movie, is my thesis, I guess.

Michael Caine’s character gets cursed by witchcraft and if Kaulder doesn’t get to the bottom of this, Michael Caine, the 36th Dolan, will die. Kaulder and the 37th Dolan, Elijah Wood, find a witch practicing illegal magic, turn him in to some kind of witch council that concludes this witch was working alone. Not satisfied, Kaulder teams up with a witch named Chloe (Rose Leslie), a double cross is revealed, and a defeated enemy blah, blah, blah.

This imaginative world has too many rules I have to learn, and I have a headache.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.