At the beginning of the week, I went to see Seventh Son. I was looking forward to it, because I’d seen the first trailer for it a couple of years back, and I had not gone to see it in France (where it came out back in December) because there weren’t any showings in English. So yeah, I was looking forward to it.

It did not disappoint. The special effects are incredible. The creatures are beautifully made and look fantastic. They integrate really well into the rest of it. The change from human to creature is also very well rendered, often due to the way it was shot, so it could be integrated seamlessly.

The story is perhaps, not the newest thing out there (I have no idea how close the movie keeps to the book either), but the movie has no obvious plot-holes that I could detect on first vision. It has no exposition either, which is quite a nice change. Granted, since one of the character must teach the other, there are a couple of “This does that” and “this is who” moments, but no “this is going to happen because this happened bla-bla-bla”. There is plenty of wits and some funny moments. The ending is not unpredictable, but as a whole, the movie keeps you interested to the end.

If I had one qualm about it, it has to do sadly, with the visual aspect of it. I went to see it in 3D, which may be the cause of it. Basically, the whole movie looks as if there is some kind of mist over everything. For instance, when Ben Barnes’ character talks to his mother by the lake, it looks like the lens is slightly foggy, like there is a slightly white hue over the image. I know, I’m not describing it well, and I wager it is something that is intentional, to add atmosphere and keep the special effect more realistic. But it makes it look like the whole thing was done over a green screen, it makes it difficult to know what was filmed on a real location, and it did bother me a little.

I liked it. It’s a good movie, and worth the wait.