Earlier this week, Variety and Fangoria posted updated cast lists for Relativity Media and Atlas Entertainment’s Season of the Witch (directed by Dominic Sena), and upon hearing this news, I had to think very hard about what I like and don’t like about this.
What I do like is the plot, which features 14th century knights escorting a girl who is suspected of being a witch who brought the Black Plague upon all of Europe. It’s definitely different from what’s out there right now, and (so far) it’s not a stupid kind of different. I also like that Ron Perlman has been signed to star opposite Nicolas Cage and to that I say “Yippee!” Though I think I was too young to really get on the Vincent bandwagon, I have always thought that Perlman was one of my favorite character actors. I mean, I love him so much that I even think fondly of Alien: Resurrection just because he’s in it.
I’m intrigued by some of the other new cast members, British actor Stephen Campbell Moore (The Bank Job), Irish actor Robbie Sheehan, and British actress Claire Foy (playing the witch), mostly because IMDB says that Sheenan was in a TV series called “Young Blades” which was about Alexander Dumas’ musketeers during their academy days—which means that if he’s playing one of the knights, he already knows his way around a sword.
What I don’t like is Nicolas Cage.
For some reason, I just don’t get him as an actor. He does sensitive and/or troubled man well (Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas), he does befuddled action hero well (The Rock), he does surreal comedy well (Raising Arizona). Yet, if you asked me if there was a recent Nicolas Cage movie that I had wanted to see, the answer would be “Um…. no?”
So I think that what I’d like to see next out of Witch would be more details about who’s playing what role, and what I’m hoping for is that Cage plays the secondary character and Perlman gets to be the lead.