‘The Last Witch Hunter’ Trailer: Vin Diesel and Elijah Wood Battle the Forces of Evil

After watching the new trailer for The Last Witch Hunter, it’s easy to see why noted uber-geek Vin Diesel would choose to star in this thing. This looks like one nerdy movie, the perfect chance for Diesel to put his years of Dungeons & Dragon practice to use on the big screen. After all, the story of an immortal warrior teaming up with a priest and a rogue witch to battle evil warlocks and monsters sounds more like an RPG campaign than a movie.

The Last Witch Hunter certainly doesn’t look as expensive or as polished as many of 2015’s other big movies, but this trailer’s cup runneth over with some charming, nerd-ass sh–t. There’s Diesel himself, as adorably marble-mouthed and likable as ever. There’s Elijah Wood, playing his new sidekick who needs to learn a thing or two about the ancient craft of rolling crits on witches. There’s Game of Thrones star Rose Leslie, playing the witchy rogue who also happens to be a witch. And because this is a genre film made after the year 2005, Michael Caine is on hand to collect a paycheck and provide charming anecdotes at the press junket.

In the director’s chair is Breck Eisner, a talented-enough journeyman filmmaker whose Sahara and The Crazies are perfectly fine but totally forgettable. In his hands, The Last Witch Hunter probably won’t be anything remarkable, but it has a shot at being a totally decent and entertaining adventure. Here’s hoping.

And here’s the official synopsis:

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, 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 opens on October 23.