If
Witchblade were any worse, it might be comic.
Instead,
this latest film from the too-prolific Turner empire is merely cheesy,
dreary and repellent. It's almost enough to make you wish Turner would
give up on making original movies and go back to running Beastmaster once
a week.
Based
on a comic book from Top Cow, which is also producing the film, this practically
incoherent fantasy is the story of a magic-armored glove that has spent
the centuries attaching itself to women, endowing them with superhuman
powers, then deserting them in their moment of greatest need. No wonder
people throw down the gauntlet — the only question is why they pick it
back up.
The
latest victim is New York cop Sara Pezzini (Brooklyn South's Yancy Butler),
whose efforts to prove a crime boss killed her father and her best friend
somehow lead her to a museum. Once there, the magic Witchblade glove slips
onto her hand during a wildly over-choreographed gunfight that has her
gliding around on a cart like some pistol-packing chorus girl. Sara better
hope the Witchblade makes her a better shot, since it looks like she can't
hit the side of a barn.
In
addition to deflecting bullets, ejecting swords and morphing into a really
garish bracelet, the Witchblade gives Sara visions — and the rest of us
headaches. It also comes complete with its own weird, oddly uninformative
acolytes, Kenneth Irons (Anthony Cistaro) and Ian Nottingham (Eric Etebari).
For
a cop, Sara takes what seems to be years to catch on to what's happening
and shows a remarkable lack of curiosity until she does. A bracelet shows
up on her wrist, and she doesn't immediately ask how or why? What did she
think — she got it from the jewelry fairy?
Alas
no. It turns out our sour Sara is "the inheritor of something deep and
powerful," the latest in a long line of witchbladers. It's sort of like
being the Slayer — only with the entertainment value removed.
With
her eyebrows permanently scrunched together, Butler spends the whole movie
either annoyed or on the verge of tears, though never on a scale commiserate
with what Sara would seem to be feeling. The only time she laughs, it's
inappropriate.
Whatever
young boys saw in the comic strip, it hasn't made the transition to the
screen. All they'll find here are a few chintzy effects stolen from The
Matrix and a host of fortune cookie bromides such as "To name is to know.
To know is to control."
