Vin Diesel is a warrior of axe and cross in this trailer for THE LAST WITCH HUNTER

It would appear that Vin Diesel can slay more than just box office records. With Furious 7 currently poised as the biggest movie of 2015 thus far, it’s easy to forget that Diesel actually has another movie out this year, and its one that’s been in the works for a while now.

The Last Witch Hunter was first announced back in 2012 with Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) set to direct off a script by Corey Goodman. But then Bekmambetov was replaced by Breck Eisner (The Crazies, Sahara) while the script went through several hands and rewrites before Dallas Buyers Club scribe Melissa Wallack’s draft came out on top. That’s a lot of talented people playing musical chairs for what looks to me actually be just another paint by numbers contemporary fantasy flick. At least that’s how I feel after watching this first trailer, which at times looks like it could just be a mashup of deleted scenes from I, Frankenstein and that one “Nicolas Cage as a magician” movie that nobody saw.

But I really enjoyed both The Crazies and Dallas Buyer’s Club and Diesel has always been a reliable action hero, especially if he gets to swing pointy weapons at creatures’ heads and/or make things go boom. He does both here, so I guess that’s enough to get me in the door. Throw in Michael Caine, Elijah Wood and Rose Leslie (not to mention that chance to actually see Diesel with hair!) and you certainly have my attention enough to hope that it’s just the trailer that’s a tad underwhelming.

The modern world holds many secrets, but the most astounding secret of all is that witches still live amongst us; vicious supernatural creatures intent on unleashing the Black Death upon the world. Armies of witch hunters battled the unnatural enemy across the globe for centuries, including Kaulder (Diesel), a valiant warrior who managed to slay the all-powerful Queen Witch, decimating her followers in the process. In the moments right before her death, the Queen curses Kaulder with her own immortality, forever separating him from his beloved wife and daughter in the afterlife. Today Kaulder is the only one of his kind remaining, and has spent centuries hunting down rogue witches, all the while yearning for his long-lost loved ones. However, unbeknownst to Kaulder, the Queen Witch is resurrected and seeks revenge on her killer causing an epic battle that will determine the survival of the human race.

The Last Witch Hunter is scheduled for release on October 23, 2015.

Last Updated: April 30, 2015