The name Vin Diesel is not synonymous with quality or thoughtful but he’s been involved with two well-loved franchises: Riddick (my favorite) and those Fast & Furious car fetish movies; word has it he’ll return to revive XXX. This mediocre knockoff of Blade, Highlander and Buffy could’ve gone in a different direction…yet it failed to dare or challenge.
Over 800 years ago, a group of warriors and Christian priests took down the witch queen in her lair. This wasn’t for the usual reasons: Christianity eliminating any faith it felt threatened by. Hunter‘s twist is that witches and humans are distinct races or divisions, like homo sapiens (us) v. Neanderthals. The Bubonic Plague wasn’t a naturally occurring disease, it was the witch queen’s doomsday weapon to purge humanity from earth. Obviously it failed, the hero Kaulder killed her with his flaming sword. With the queen’s dying breath, she cursed Kaulder with immortality so he’d never join his family in the afterlife.
Fast forward to now. Kaulder works for the Catholic Church enforcing the peace treaty between witches and humans. He goes after those who commit crimes, brings them before the witches’ council under St. Patrick’s in NYC and there they’re sentenced, usually banishment to another realm. Hanging around to chronicle his adventures is a Catholic priest called Dolan, named after the guy from the 14th century, just put a number after it like we do for Popes and monarchs (*cough!* ripoff from Highlander the series). Currently, Dolan XXXVI retiring and he wants to wish Kaulder well before the new Dolan XXXVII takes over. On the evening of his retirement, Dolan XXXVI dies and this makes Kaulder suspicious, putting the movie into its usual motions of cliches, tropes and predictability.
Hunter isn’t all terrible. I was stoked to see Michael Caine and Elijah Wood as the Dolans. I loved how the flaming sword worked, some kind of silverish napalm dripped from the hilt into the blade’s groove. Vin was definitely having a good time too. I liked how he re-assured a small child on a buffeting aircraft, I could use him on my flights every time! As for the witches and warlocks, they all resembled stereotypical Goths if they had Hollywood beauty. Par for the course with everyone to be fair. Trust me, my crowd (techies and nerds) rarely resembles The Big Bang Theory‘s two White guys.
Lastly, I do have to applaud Vin for being a producer on his films. Maybe there’s a money angle but it also means he has more flesh in the game. Should this fail (box-office wise, it has) or succeed, he shares in the blame or praise. Sadly we can count on Hunter to become a frequent time-filler on TNT, Spike, SyFy, WGN, El Rey and TBS.
Alamo Extras: Stop-motion of rats in a band; Trailers for The Witch’s Mirror, Witchcraft (starring Lon Chaney Jr.!), Simon – King of the Witches, Mark of the Witch, an Italian movie resembling Bewitched, Blood on Satan’s Claw, The Witchfinder General (Vincent Price!); a silent movie showing Satan worshippers; short of pranksters in a morgue (lame); commercial for the old headshrinker toy (these were fading away when I was a kid); commercial for a double feature in NJ plugging Night of the Witches and Dr. Frankenstein on Campus promising nurses to assist the faint of heart; the intro to a Japanese version of Bewitched; and a fat guy v. ghosts. Sadly, no trailer for Warlock or Season of the Witch…no wait, that movie came out four years ago and had similar plot points. OK, maybe they could’ve found an old Donovan performance.