Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Last Witch Hunter (2015)

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 10-24-2015, 03:27 PM:

CINEMA: Cinemarkury 20 and XD at Jordan Creek, West Des Moines, IA
AUDITORIUM: 11
PRESENTATION: Cinemark Xtreme Douchebag Cinema Illuminated by Barco with Auro surround
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Some asshole coughed through the entire fucking feature...oh wait, that was me
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

THE PLOT: A witch hunter gets a new apprentice. Wackiness ensues.

This looks cool. It feels cool. It gets where it's going in a sensible way (well...given the subject matter). But it had a hard time keeping my attention. My mind kept drifting off to other things. Things like what to do for llunch.

The Auro surround setup effectively translates to a second surround speaker array mounted up toward the ceiling above the existing surrounds. Nothing on the ceiling itself that I saw. Sound quality was exactly as it was before Auro, but with unique noises from additional sources. Sounded much more full range than any Atmos install I've heard. Really sounded impressive during the XD trailer.

Posted by Matt Russell (Member # 8989) on 10-24-2015, 08:43 PM:

I was hoping to catch this in Auro, but my local Cinemark decided to keep Steve Jobs in XD for another week...

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-28-2015, 08:52 AM:

quote: Sam Graham
Some asshole coughed through the entire fucking feature

some lady did that during 'The Walk' - I couldn't decide if I wanted to get that lady a drink or pelt her with my popcorn.

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 11-07-2015, 04:49 PM:

After a Middle Ages witch hunt gone wrong, Dominique (Vin Diesel) is cursed with immortality and thus forever burdened with the memory of his lost beloved wife and daughter. Fast forward to present day and Dom is still keeping the witch population in check with help from his faithful man servant, Alfred (Michael Caine). When Alfred is attacked by some dark Nordic super warlock who doubtless has the suffix "sson" on his name (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), Dom enlists new hired help, Frodo (Elijah Wood), and bar wench witch, Ygritte (Rose Leslie), to track down the Dark Ages rascal before he re-animates Dom's witch queen nemesis.

If you can get past Diesel's quietly hilarious Norse beard, The Last Witch Hunter is a reasonably fun fantasy action thriller. It's Middle Ages sections hark to the sword 'n' sorcery cheapies of the early eighties (The Sword and the Sorcerer, Beastmaster, Krull et al) while it's present day sections are solid Ghostbusters/Men In Black type fare with a dash of Underworld thrown in for good measure.

It's all harmless fun, though the final showdown between the good guy and the bad girl is typically predictable and correspondingly yawnworthy.

The film finishes in a manner which suggests the origin of a new franchise but if the dearth of pre-promotion for the film is anything to go by, this is unlikely to happen with the exception, perhaps, of a handful of straight-to-DVD cheapies.

6 out of 10

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 11-08-2015, 01:19 PM:

The Downtown Center theater here in San Luis Obispo played it in DTS:X. Sounded good!

Harold