The Last Witch Hunter follows the travel-cum-exploits of an immortal man battling witches in a modern-day setting. No spoilers there, you can get those bits from the trailer. So how much more does the actual movie offers? Not much, sadly.
I love fantasy tales but just including magical elements (and a little VFX) does not make a good story. That's like Powerpuff girls without Chemical X. For the most part, The Last Witch Hunter is predictable. You can guess the whole movie within 10 minutes. Maybe the writer noticed it too. So in his/ her last ditch effort to make the audience go "I didn't see that coming," they put a tiny twist in the story. But it's so uncharacteristic and unnecessary, that they could have just edited out the whole section. Then again, they can't cut a lot because there's not much going on in the story. There's not a single moment which sticks to you after you are done watching the movie. In fact, the story is so simple, a 5-year old could sum it up for you. (I mean it in complete honesty.)
The second major disappointment for the movie are the characters. The witch-hunter, his friends, enemies, are all one-dimensional (I actually looked up the word and it pretty much means what I want to say). Their personalities have a single shade and do not grow a bit within the film's span. What's more boring is that they are all picked up from a tried and tested template format. Not a single one acts out of his way as a hero, sidekick, or villain. The actors were maybe restricted by a poor script but they certainly could have tried harder to make the characters look convincing.
The cinematography or VFX in the movie are nothing to talk about. They stick to textbook norms and fill their purpose, but there is nothing fresh or unique. What's interesting though is that the whole film looks like it took inspiration from video games. In fact there is this one section which looked straight out of The last of Us. I don't even remember much of the background scores; either they were too unimpressive or the movie just drowned it out.
I really want to say something positive about the movie to make this look less like an angry movie-watcher's rant. So here are some things I like in the movie: Vin Diesel's pre-800 years look and his ride 800 years later.
In conclusion, I would not recommend this movie to any of my friends unless they owe me money or they are into Vin Diesel. If you are in a mood to watch something similar, I would recommend, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which even though not a great movie is certainly more enjoyable.
