MOVIE REVIEW: ‘SEASON OF THE WITCH’

It would be understandable if you went into Season of the Witch expecting to see the worst. The movie is a veritable laundry list of “avoid this” signifiers: hack director(Dominic Sena, who’s credits include Swordfish, Gone in 60 Seconds and — yeesh — Whiteout) with confidence-killing oeuvre? Check. A once-promising star (Nicolas Cage) who’s spent the last decade content with cashing paychecks from bad movies? Check. A movie that sat on the shelf for nearly a year, was abandoned by its original distributor (Lionsgate) and dumped in the cinematic graveyard that is January? Check, check and checkmate.