Season of the Witch

Both the star and director of the awful rehash of 'Gone in Sixty Seconds' reunited? What could possibly go right? Watching this cinematic carwreck, I couldn't help recall the point in Mel Brooks' 1968 comedy 'The Producers', when theatrical producer and con-man Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) bemoans the success of 'Springtime For Hitler' - the Broadway show he was counting on to be a flop: "How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where... More did I go right?" Today, if Max was after a sure-fire turkey he'd simply call Nicolas Cage, the once great actor who now has a fulltime career ruining movies. From the horrific gag-in-your-mouth-fest 'The Wicker Man' to the gouge-my-eyes-out-with-a-spoon-banality of both 'National Treasure' and 'Ghost Rider' movies, Cage seems so embarrassed by appearing in the odd good movie ('Kick-Ass' or 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Title Please'), that he's doubly determined to frack up this medieval mess. Or is it medieval? Some actors speak in that Hollywood "olden days" style - "My good Lord, if I mayst partake of thee" - whilst Cage and his "funny" sidekick (played by Ron Perlman, who is so great in 'Hellboy' and 'Drive'), talk as though they're out for a pint in downtown New York tonight. It's meant to be set in Europe, but where, Cage only knows. It's like a Europe envisioned by Walt Disney designing a Las Vegas hotel for families. Frankly, it's a must if, like me, you get a kick out of sitting mouth agape in sheer amazed wonder at just how nobody noticed how bad this must have been in the script stage... Is Cage an Italian Max Bialystock, laundering vast sums of ill-gotten Mafia cash by making bad movies on purpose? Directed with almost no style, zero aplomb and not a scintilla of dynamism by Dominic Sena (who gave us the turd 'Gone in Sixty Seconds' and the even bigger turd 'Whiteout'), 'Season of the Witch' is so stupid, dull and brain-dead, you may, like me, spend most of the movie praying that the 'witch' gets lose and kills off the main cast quickly so as to end the audience's misery. My recurring nightmare is that Cage and Travolta reteam to make 'Face Off 2: Off Their Face", a musical comedy directed by Mc G, written by Adam Sandler, scored by Justin Bieber and produced by Michael Bay. Gods help us - even THAT would be better than 'Season of the Witch'...Hide