Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

The Last Witch Hunter Blu-ray Movie Review

Bats, man.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 26, 2016

His character’s name isn’t Alfred this time around, but Michael Caine really might have thought he was signing up for another iteration of The Dark Knight Trilogy for all intents and purposes in The Last Witch Hunter. While not a butler per se, Caine’s character of Dolan (more properly the 36th Dolan, but more about that later) is an avuncular elder who tends to a mysterious superhero who is tasked with keeping various nefarious baddies out of a Manhattan metropolis which (again, for all intents and purposes) might as well be called Gotham. Caine is perhaps luckily shunted off to the sidelines for much of The Last Witch Hunter, a “high concept” offering that is so high (in a manner of speaking) it requires not just an explanatory prologue, but then an additional post-prologue voiceover by none other than Caine himself to further explicate some salient plot points. The bottom line is that Vin Diesel portrays a Middle Ages warrior named Kaulder who, in that aforementioned prologue, is part of a feudal team tasked with taking out a nasty witch who has unleashed the “Black Plague” (as they call it) on the populace. The Witch Queen (Julie Engelbrecht), who will perhaps remind some science fiction fans of another queen, namely the royal Borg played by Alice Krige in Star Trek VIII: First Contact, engages in some hocus pocus that mesmerizes various other combatants, leading to a showdown between herself and Kaulder. Kaulder has plans to kill both the Queen and himself in one epic move, since Kaulder like all good heroes (super and/or otherwise, but rather similarly to a certain Caped Crusader) is a wounded soul nursing the trauma of his family having been killed and has no reason to continue living. The Witch Queen is kind of a mean girl, though, and as she (supposedly) dies, reaches right into Kaulder's chest and “gifts” him with eternal life. Whew! And that’s just the prologue, folks.

The post-prologue bulk of the film takes place in contemporary times, as the now (seemingly) ageless Kaulder has continued to keep witches in line down through the intervening centuries. For several hundred years, he’s been working in tandem with a quasi-religious order known as The Axe and Cross, which is where the 36th Dolan comes in. Since Kaulder keeps on living, kind of like a witch obsessed Energizer bunny, he is in need of regular replacements in the assistant category, and The Axe and Cross has helpfully provided him with a line of such acolytes, all known as Dolan, with the appropriate number before their “name”. The 36th Dolan is in fact preparing to retire as the film gets into its main storyline, and has told Kaulder that a new helper, the 37th Dolan (Elijah Wood), will soon be joining the “good fight”.

The Last Witch Hunter shows signs of either having been tweaked in post or (perhaps even worse) having been put into production without a well thought out screenplay in place, for there are rather looming narrative gaps at play, even with those aforementioned explanatory gambits. Characters show up with absolutely no introduction or context, and the whole conceit of the film is never really adequately detailed, meaning viewers simply have to surrender to the haphazard presentation style and “go with the flow”. The main plot mechanics surround the (supposed) murder of the 36th Dolan, something that sends Kaulder and the 37th Dolan out on a snark hunt to take down the witch who did the bad deed, something that in turn soon puts them in touch with a “dreamwalker” witch named Chloe (Rose Leslie), a move that sends the film careening off into Dreamscape territory.

There’s a lot of interesting content in The Last Witch Hunter, but it’s so chaotically offered that my hunch is only those who love bombastic soundtracks and lots of (admittedly quite inventive) special effects will find this compelling enough to sit through. There are a number of predictable “twists” (including one character “reveal” which is about as unsurprising as possible), but even putting that unfortunate tendency aside, the film simply never offers more than a sketch, rather than a fully completed illustration. Things probably would have worked better had that prologue included more information about Kaulder’s long trek from feudal times to the 21st century, as well as a more solid explication of the whole “witches living among the humans” angle. Director Breck Eisner keeps things moving at a brisk pace, but the film is ultimately kind of a shambles.

The Last Witch Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Last Witch Hunter is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Digitally shot with Arri Alexa cameras, The Last Witch Hunter is often rather sumptuously handsome, benefitting from a nicely detailed production design and some well done special effects which combine both CGI and practical effects. While there are the requisite color grading gambits, as well as some other bells and whistles applied to scenes that include flashbacks and "dream walking", overall detail levels remain great, especially in close-ups. The film is often quite dark, but shadow definition is typically well above average. There are a couple of very brief moments of image instability, including a brief aerial establishing shot of New York where some minor aliasing creeps in, but generally speaking, this is a top flight video presentation which should easily please the film's fans.

Note: The Last Witch Hunter 4K is going to be among the first wave of 4K UHD releases which are due in about a month. It will be interesting to see if the new release significantly improves on an already impressive visual quality.

The Last Witch Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Last Witch Hunter features a similarly impressive DTS:X audio track (DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 core, the version reviewed here). There are a number of outstanding effects, including some great panning moments when various special effects sequences overtake the narrative. There's quite a bit of forceful LFE in play, especially in the "showdown" scenes with the Witch Queen, as well as a couple of the "dream walking" sequences. Source cues, including covers of such iconic tunes as "Paint It, Black" also fill the surround channels quite convincingly. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented and is well prioritized.

The Last Witch Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Crafting the Magic: The Last Witch Hunter (1080p; 30:20) is a fairly standard EPK fest, though it includes some fun interviews with tidbits like Vin discussing his love of Dungeons and Dragons.


• Animated Short Films: The Origins of the Axe and Cross features a quartet of shorts narrated by Michael Caine:

  Before Mankind (1080p; 2:43)

  The Witch Lords (1080p; 2:18)

  The Witch Hunter (1080p; 2:44)

  Witches Live Among Us (1080p; 2:06)

• The Last Witch Hunter Sizzle Reel/Paint It, Black (1080p; 1:36) is a brief quasi-trailer playing to the iconic Rolling Stones tune (not sung by the Stones).


• Commentary with Breck Eisner. Eisner is conversational but informative, going over a number of issues like the prosthetic makeup and various special effects strategies.

Note: This is another recent Blu-ray that refused to load properly on my PC using PowerDVD. I am always more than willing to blame PowerDVD for these issues, since it is unquestionably one of the glitchiest programs I've ever had the displeasure to have to use regularly, but in this case the disc also refused to boot when I used another PC based Blu-ray player program, so this may (emphasis on may) indicate some authoring errors which make it problematic for those wanting to watch on their computers.

The Last Witch Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Considering the blistering reviews The Last Witch Hunter received when it was first released (including by our own Brian Orndorf), I expected the film to be an absolute disaster. I was therefore at least somewhat surprised at how much of the film I actually enjoyed. A smarter, better structured screenplay could have solved a lot of the issues here, especially if just a little more time had been spent detailing Kaulder's transformation from feudal warrior to contemporary witch "enforcer". Too much is elided here to give the film any emotional resonance (not that it's aiming for any to begin with), leaving the plot just kind of frayed and ill defined feeling. The film is nonetheless often quite enjoyable from a purely visual and sonic standpoint, and so some folks may want to check it out for those reasons. Technical merits are very strong for those considering a purchase.