The movie Seventh Son, based on the novel The Spook’s Apprentice by Joseph Delaney, was released on Feb. 6. It centers around Thomas Ward (Ben Barnes), the proclaimed “seventh son of a seventh son” (giving the movie its title), John Gregory (Jeff Bridges), the last member of a knightly order known as the Spooks, and Mother Malkin, (Julianne Moore), a powerful witch and Gregory’s rival.

Seventh Son has garnered mostly negative reviews due to the movie’s not entirely original plot and has earned $98,402,030 so far, most of it from foreign theatres.

Synopsis:
Seventh Son starts out with John Gregory imprisoning Mother Malkin, leaving her there for 10 years before a centennial event known as the Blood Moon allows Malkin to escape her prison in the form of a dragon. Gregory and his apprentice, Billy Bradley, are then called to investigate the possession of a girl. In the end, it is revealed that Malkin was possessing the girl, leading to a fight between her, Gregory, and his apprentice in which Bradley is killed, allowing the witch to escape. Some time later, the Spook travels to a remote island to take on Thomas Ward as his new apprentice, as only the seventh son of a seventh son can become a Spook. Tom is given an amulet from his mother before he leaves with Master Gregory to begin his training, which is restricted to a week due to the Blood Moon.

Overall, the movie was decent. While the plot may not have been the most original, most movies now do not contain entirely original plots. The movie’s main downside, however, is the extremely rushed romance between Tom Ward and Alice Deane (played by Alicia Vikander). The film shows the two meeting for a few minutes in own scene, and by the end of their second, short scene together they are already “in love.” Due to the movie’s short timeframe (one week), this makes Tom’s and Alice’s romance seem entirely rushed and fabricated, as there is little reason for them to be romantically attracted to one another. At one point, Tom even considers running away with Alice after their third meeting. The romantic subplot felt like it had been put in at the last minute or was not fully developed.