‘Season’: still in the Dark Ages

Dominic Sena’s latest

By Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Nicolas Cage flashes those pearly whites, chews some striking Austrian, Hungarian and Croatian scenery and collects another check for “Season of the Witch,” the latest in a long, almost uninterrupted run of junk movies that are beneath an actor of his Oscar-winning caliber.

“Witch” has him playing a wayward knight forced to escort an accused witch to an abbey where she can be tried, sentenced and executed, thus lifting the curse of the Black Death that has descended over Europe, thanks — the priests say — to her. And the best you can say about this hooey is that at least he had the King of the Bs, Ron Perlman, along for a few sidekick laughs.

Cage and Perlman are Behmen and Felson, crusaders who have deserted.

“Ever get the feeling God has a few too many enemies?” Felson cracks, and they quit the cause.

On their way home, they’re discovered, imprisoned and then coerced into delivering the accused girl (Claire Foy) to a distant abbey. The pox-ridden cardinal (Christopher Lee, in hideous makeup) sends them on their way, with a priest (Stephen Campbell Moore), another knight (Ulrich Thomsen), a swindler who knows the way (Stephen Graham) and an altar boy who longs to be a knight (Robert Sheehan).

The girl is in a jail on wheels, and from her devilish looks and occasional superhuman feats of strength, we can guess how good a lawyer she’s going to need. They’re warned to keep their distance, for “she sees the weakness that lies within our hearts.”

Moore, as the priest, gets the movie’s best line: “We’re going to need more holy water.”

The rest of the lighter moments belong to Perlman, and for all Cage’s earnestness and half-speed swordfighting, what few pleasures come from this kill-them-off-one-by-one tale are provided by Perlman’s droll way with a one-liner. The once-and-future Hellboy can joke about the prisons he and his pal have been in, sexual misadventures in France and, heading into a fight, “Whoever slays the most men, drinks for free.” His good humor is the film’s sole redeeming virtue.

Cage’s old pal Dominic Sena is a decade removed from their “Gone in 60 Seconds” directing glory, and he gets nothing out of this script that isn’t pure hokum.

Anachronisms and sword-and-sorcery film cliches (e.g. the creaky wood-and-rope bridge) follow a long opening montage that screams, “So THAT’S what a digital Crusade looks like!”

It’s great to see how much of Europe still looks spooky and medieval, with suitable forests, mountain and castle settings for movies set in the 14th century. But it’s wasted on another film from the Dark Ages of Nicolas Cage’s career.