Flashback to February 2013. The Super Bowl was dealing with faulty lights rather than deflated balls. Jennifer Lawrence was able to jokingly fist-pump the fact that no one had seen her naked during Seth MacFarlane’s "We Saw Your Boobs" Oscars bit. I was a lowly intern here at OnMilwaukee.com, hoping to get a job while starting my final semester at Marquette University. In three months time, I’d be listening to Bill Cosby part advice to a packed Bradley Center filled with smiling graduates, parents and relatives.

And movie theaters were awaiting the arrival of "Seventh Son" that month. So maybe not everything has changed.

Yes, back in early 2013 B.C.T. (Before Cyrus Twerked), the new Jeff Bridges-led fantasy adventure was set to come out. Then the movie got pushed to October of that year. And then, thanks to a split between its production company and distributor, it got pushed again to January 2014. And then one more time, over one whole year later, to this weekend.

It’s been a long, pothole-filled journey to the big screen for "Seventh Son," one that unfortunately has not been worth it. A tired story, dull performances and uninspired filmmaking team up to make a movie that plays like the last moldy pfft of air finally escaping from a long-forgotten deflated balloon. It’s a film destined to be forgotten without bothering to leave any sign it ever existed in the first place.

Jeff Bridges – sounding like he’s doing an Sean Connery-tinted impression of himself in "R.I.P.D.," which was already Bridges doing an impression of himself as Rooster Cogburn – stars as Master Gregory, a medieval spook tasked with hunting down and destroying creatures of the dark, including huge ogres, ghosts and ghasts (which are like ghosts … but with an "a").

His main expertise, however, is burning witches, and the worst one – Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) – has just climbed out of the prison young Gregory once dumped her in. Gregory and his apprentice (hi Kit Harington from "Game of Thrones") attempt to rein her in, but she’s grown more powerful, escaping to the mountains and killing Gregory’s padawan (bye Kit Harington from "Game of Thrones") in process.

While Malkin assembles her team of villainous medieval Animorphs (including Djimon Hounsou as a shape-shifting assassin/oversized Gila monster), Gregory sets off to snag a new assistant, with being a seventh son of a seventh son the only requirement. He finds him in the form of Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), a lowly farmhand plagued with wavering blade-throwing aim, ominous visions of the future, queasiness about killing monsters and a painful dearth of on-screen charisma. Even so, Gregory takes him on, teaching him grumbling, annoyed lessons about being a spook while the two set across the land to stop Malkin and her growing army.

There are a few moments where "Seventh Son" threatens to veer in an at least mildly interesting direction, such as hints that Tom isn’t actually a seventh son or that Gregory is murderously insane. They’re just fleeting, feeble gasps, however, in a story that overwhelmingly plays like "Generic Fantasy Action Adventure: The Movie."

Bridges’ character delivers crotchety and reluctant guidance that’s of course explained by some sad hidden backstory to be revealed in between acts two and three. Tom of course falls in love with a nice young witch (Alicia Vikander, "The Fifth Estate") who’s being forced by Malkin to do wrong. Dead family members return to give heavenly glowing pep talks. Battles rage. Monsters roar. Prophecies ramble. And even though there’s a blue spark of love (or dust, apparently) at one point, there’s rarely ever a spark of life amongst the drab, predictable tedium.

If the script (which surprisingly claims Steven Knight – who previously wrote strong stuff like "Eastern Promises," "Dirty Pretty Things" and last year’s "Locke" – as one of its scribes) is going to dole out pure recycled cardboard, the hope is that the performances or the direction or something might provide a little flavor. Alas, the only flavor to be found in "Seventh Son" is just more cardboard.

Barnes is gallingly stiff and unengaging as our dumb, learning-on-the-job hero (a witch escapes him early on by using the devious trickery of … telling him to close his eyes). Whenever "Seventh Son" shifts its attention over to his romance with the equally stilted Vikander, the movie’s laborious trudge downgrades to an inert slog

As for the accidental "Big Lebowski" reunion, Moore does an admirable job wearing spindly black dragon dresses and belching out silly fantasy exposition like, "My power awakens with the rise of the blood moon. Hell awakens!" It’s a role, however, that absolutely begs for Eva Green – or at least a similarly devious, scenery-chewing performance – to punch through the movie’s chest, grab its lifeless heart and give it at least a faint pulse through sheer force of will.

Then there’s Bridges. Admittedly, there’s still a little amusement to watch Bridges spit out liquored-up witticisms while speaking in a voice that sounds like his unkempt beard is growing from inside of his throat. But the grumbly banter here is weak (case in point: "F*cking witches," mumbled apropos of nothing), and not only have we been down this road before with "True Grit," we’ve already shoddily knocked it off in "R.I.P.D." It’s a performance – and a movie overall – that’s long passed its sell-by date.

Making his English-language debut, director Sergei Bodrov is ill-equipped to freshen it up. The Russian filmmaker’s actually scored two Oscar nominations ("Mongol" and "Prisoner of the Mountains") in the past, but there’s little evidence of that here.

Sure, there are some decent creatures – I personally am a fan of the evil blue four-armed sword master who disappointingly only gets two scenes – but for a supposed fantasy epic (with the hard-working bombastic score to match), it feels incredibly small. The action technically works, but it’s PG-13 bland, cheap and often glaringly pointless (looking at you, flaming knight fight that sounds infinitely cooler than it is) with a climax packed with dumb behavior and a lame final fight that’s not even a fight. At least there’s a great slow motion "Yoink!" moment to laugh at.

It all adds up to a movie all too eager to be instantly forgotten. Even the Newton Thomas Sigel’s cinematography has an odd misty haze to it, like "Seventh Son" is disappearing from existence Marty McFly-style even before it’s done playing on screen.

It’s fitting this came out the same weekend as The Wachowskis’ similarly delayed, similarly CGI-heavy genre pic "Jupiter Ascending." Out of the two, the "Matrix" creators sci-fi flick has mostly served as the whipping boy of the weekend; it cost more – $176 million compared to a still staggeringly ridiculous $95 for "Seventh Son" – and it’s much more aggressively silly. But I’d much rather go to bat for the goofiness and bold outlandishness of "Jupiter Ascending" than this boring, assembly line, peak-at-competent fantasy dross. At least the former swings for the fences. "Seventh Son" doesn’t even bother to get in the box.