I'm looking forward to THE LAST WITCH HUNTER with some excitement, partly because the basic concept of an immortal hunting adversaries in the modern age with a bladed weapon calls to mind the original HIGHLANDER for me, and also because I'm looking forward to seeing star Vin Diesel interact with the supporting cast of Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood, and Sir Michael Caine.
The film's lengthy synopsis goes like this:
Five hundred years ago, war raged between humankind and witches, vicious supernatural creatures intent on unleashing the Black Death upon the world. Armies of witch hunters battled the unnatural enemy across the globe, including KAULDER (Vin Diesel), a valiant warrior who managed to slay an all-powerful QUEEN WITCH, decimating her followers in the process. In the moments before her death, the Queen exacted her revenge by cursing Kaulder with immortality, forever separating him from his beloved wife and daughter in the afterlife. Kaulder has spent centuries hunting down rogue witches, all the while yearning for his long-lost loved ones.
Today, he is the only one of his kind–the last witch hunter. With the help of FATHER DOLAN, a Catholic priest, and a mystical arsenal hidden beneath New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, he continues to pursue the renegades and outlaws who endanger humanity. Chief among their adversaries is BELIAL, a powerful rebel witch who Kaulder believes has found a way to restore the Queen Witch to power and reignite her campaign to destroy the human world.
With the help of CHLOE, a goodhearted young witch, Kaulder sets out to stop Belial before he can set his plan in motion, but allies in unexpected places keep the evil witch one step ahead in a cunning cat-and-mouse pursuit that will determine the survival of the human race.
A new image from the film shows Vin Diesel swinging a weapon to bring about the fiery demise of… I'm not quite sure what it is that he's hitting, but odds are that it's something witchy.
Lions Gate will be releasing THE LAST WITCH HUNTER into theatres on October 23rd, and Diesel has said that the studio is already planning a sequel. Here's hoping that the movie is successful enough, and good enough, to earn that sequel. And if part 2 happens, here's hoping that it will be better than HIGHLANDER 2.