Vin Diesel stars as Kaulder, a man with nothing to live for since the death of his family, who we see cursed with eternal life by the witch Queen (Julie Engelbrecht) as he slays her during the time of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. We then jump forward to present day and Kaulder is working as a hunter for an organisation called The Axe And Cross, which acts as a religious military police of sorts and keeps the peace between witches and humans. Each hunter has a keeper and Kaudlers keeper the 36th Dolan (Michael Caine) is retiring so he is teamed up with a younger keeper in the form of the 37th Dolan (Elijah Wood). However, after the 36th Dolan is murdered by a witch Kaulder must turn to two young witches Chloe (Rose Leslie) and  Miranda (Aimee Carrero) for assistance but when they are attacked by Belial who seems to have powers that Kaulder has not seen since the middle ages, it is up to Kaulder and his young allies to battle the dark forces that are gathering to bring the Queen Witch back from the dead.

While there were times that it felt a bit like an adult Harry Potter movie, director Breck Eisner does a good job of creating a slow build up as layer upon layer is peeled back giving us a deeper look into this world of co-existence that we started off knowing nothing about and the lack of need for too much exposition into what is sold as an ancient society shows us what a good job he does in telling us all that we need on screen, at least until the very rushed feeling of the last third anyway.

Diesel plays to his strengths as the immortal slayer, brooding and gruff born of a confidence of eight hundred years or so on this earth, unable to die and the supporting cast, while not given a huge amount to do for most of the movie, support him well, although I didn’t really buy the supposed sexual chemistry between Diesel and Leslie.

While the movie has its flaws and I questioned the motivation for a few of the characters, if you enjoy fantasy movies and don’t pull too hard to the weak script threads then the movie holds together well as an entertaining fantasy, action, adventure film with a lead that fits the role perfectly. While there was no doubt that this was meant as a potential avenue into a franchise I don’t feel it was strong enough (or successful) to entice the studio into producing further movies but as a one off it’s worthy of checking out as long as your expectations aren’t set too high.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 Out Of 10