Seventh Son

I have read a few books from the Spook's Apprentice series and I can tell you with certainty that this movie is very far from the plot there. Worst than that, every decent scene in the film is in the trailer and the rest are just filling. No real fights, no real drama, the acting was abysmal, but it pales in comparison with the script, which seems to be have been written by a banker worrying he is giving the world too much. It is a horribly bad film that I advise against watching.

The books themselves are a sort of Harry Potterish thing for children, replacing Hogwarts with a grumpy fighter against the creatures of the dark and Harry with a rare "seventh son of a seventh son" that is traditionally employed in this "spook" business. There were several things that went against this series becoming very popular: first is the term "spook" which in the US was controversial due to some colloquial racial meaning, so they changed the name with which they published the book into The Last Apprentice. Then the name of the author, Joseph Delaney, which is pretty common and easy to confuse with other writers named Delaney.

However the plot of the books is easy to follow, interesting, sometimes engaging; Delaney had just as much right for fame as J.K. Rowling. Alas, this film pretty much cements his failure. Too bad.