Yet another attempt to turn a popular fantasy book series into a movie franchise that fails miserably, “Seventh Son” wastes the talents of people like Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore in a tediously familiar tale involving witches, shape-shifters and their heroic opponents that relies heavily on CGI transformation scenes for effect. It doesn’t take long for a viewer to realize that this “Son” is stillborn.

The movie, directed without much panache by Sergei Bodrov (who fared far better on his home territory with “Mongol”) is very loosely derived from “The Spook’s Apprentice” (2004), the first book of Joseph Delaney’s “The Wardstone Chronicles” (published in this country as “The Last Apprentice”), which grew to thirteen volumes before ending last year. Set in the north of England during medieval times, the series followed the development of Tom Ward, a twelve-year old farmboy and the seventh son of a seventh son, who was taken on as an apprentice by John Gregory, a so-called Spook who does battle with all creatures of The Dark; the first book dealt with Tom’s initial experiences in his new role, including a confrontation with a witch called Mother Malkin and a girl named Alice who’s related to her.

Delaney’s rather simple story has been turned into an overblown behemoth by scripters Charles Leavitt and Steven Knight. Tom is no longer a boy, but a strapping young man (Ben Barnes) who yearns to leave the farm and doesn’t much object when he’s virtually sold to Gregory (Bridges). (He also has visions of future events, a circumstance that will eventually be explained by the background of his mother, played by Olivia Williams.) The Spook, portrayed as a drunken old fellow who can still punch out much more formidable foes, needs a new apprentice because his former one (Kit Harington) has just been killed in battle by Malkin (Moore), here the Queen of Witches imprisoned years before by Gregory but recently escaped from her underground cavern as a result of the incipient appearance of the Blood Moon, a centennial phenomenon that gives her special powers. Malkin also has the ability to change into a dragon, and does so with depressing frequency to give the visual effects team something to play with.

But she’s not the only shape-shifter. She has a coterie of helpers who can do so as well—one turns into a leopard, another into a bear, a third into a dragon of different stripe from Malkin’s. What little plot there is consists of some perfunctory training sequences for the apprentice before he and Gregory set off in pursuit of Malkin, accompanied by the Spook’s ugly but loyal servant Tusk (John DeSantis). In the process they meet up with Alice (Alicia Vikander), the beautiful, spunky daughter of Milkin’s devoted assistant Bony Lizzie (Antje Traue). Alice seems to possess no witchy abilities but easily seduces Tom with her coquettish charm as he and the Spook wend their way through a series of tiresome adventures prior to a final confrontation with Milkin and her confederates, filled with CGI transformations, falling pillars and seemingly endless waves of mayhem.

Probably no young actor could have invested Tom with sufficient charisma to make “Seventh Son” seem like something other than one more dismal modern retread of the sort of boys’ adventure yarns Ray Harryhausen used to turn out with stop-motion creatures, but bland Barnes (Prince Caspian in the “Narnia” pictures) certainly doesn’t do the trick. Perhaps to make up for his young co-star’s dullness—but more likely because it’s just his way—Bridges gives another of his way-over-the-top turns, acting semi-looped throughout and delivering his lines mushily as he contorts his lower jaw into what appears to be a grotesque underbite. Moore’s presence promises far more than it delivers: in her human form, the Queen Witch is just an icily unemotional woman with extra-long fingers, and she too often changes into beast form to allow the actress much chance to do anything distinctive—just as her recent turn in “Mockingjay” hamstrung her. Vikander is pretty but not especially engaging as Alice, and Williams has a nice maternal air, while Harington, after his death scene in “Pompeii,” gets another one here: maybe a pattern is emerging.

But all the cast play second fiddle to the effects, which can be described as fairly standard-issue. They’re integrated reasonably well with the live-action footage shot in the oppressively dark, gloomy tones thought appropriate to medieval times by Newton Thomas Sigel, whose visuals have been punched up with 3D enhancements that no one could describe as subtle. But the compositions do the best they can with Dante Ferretti’s dank production design, the obvious model work, and Jacqueline West’s uninspired costumes. Marco Beltrami’s score, at least when heard over IMAX speakers, is bombastically overpowering, and the sound overall is loud to the point of discomfort.

Life on a medieval farm was undoubtedly hard, but it might have been better for all of us if Tom Ward had just stayed home and tended the pigs.

Though “Ascending” is half the title, people are always falling from incredible heights into an apparent abyss in the Wachowski siblings’ latest, a madcap mash-up of “Star Wars,” “Dune,” “Star Trek” and even “Soylent Green” that has impressive special effects but a narrative about as smart as a Buster Crabbe “Flash Gordon” serial. How much you enjoy it will depend on what means more to you—extravagant visuals and wacky action sequences, or a dumber-than dumb storyline.

Like the Wachowskis’ last picture “Cloud Atlas,” “Jupiter Ascending” deals with reincarnation, and like their “Matrix” series, it posits a world in which earthlings are the unknowing pawns of an outside power. The premise is that the universe is dominated by a race of elite humans whose main power players are the rival members of the Abrasax family—sneering Balem (Eddie Redmayne), coquettish Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and caddish Titus (Douglas Booth). They have “seeded” other planets in the galaxy—just think of Erich von Daniken, with some adjustments—to produce human life, and when each colony globe reaches the point of overpopulation, they harvest the result to provide a special kind of treat for their kind.

The matriarch of the clan—who we’re eventually told had lived a hundred thousand years or so—has recently died, and her heirs are fighting over control of the planets in her account. Earth turns out to be the most important of these, because it’s there that a genetic abnormality has occurred—the birth of a Russian girl named Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), now part of her family’s housecleaner business in Chicago, who happens to be the “recurrence” (or genetic duplicate) of the deceased queen. And a wrinkle in the inheritance law prescribes that in such a rare case, the reincarnation has pride of place.

No wonder Jupiter suddenly finds herself the target of a bunch of bounty-hunters, as well as some grisly CGI “keepers” (creatures that look rather like the extraterrestrials from “Close Encounters” except that they’re certainly not benign) that want to kill her. Luckily a savior swoops in: hunky Caine (Channing Tatum), revealed later as a human-wolf hybrid, who’s equipped with a magic shield and anti-gravity boots that allow him to fly around in the air as though he were riding an invisible skateboard. He rescues her in a chase-and-gunfire scene that leaves half of the Loop’s skyline in ashes (shades of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”) before reuniting with old frenemy Stinger (Sean Bean)—like him an excommunicated member of the flying Legionaries (“Barbarella,” anyone?), whose prosthetic wings have been amputated—and together they take her to their home world.

There the machinations of Kalique, Titus and Balem come into play, as each tries to use Jupiter for his own nefarious purposes. Meanwhile Caine, who’s clearly besotted with the girl, is helped by Stinger and Famulus (Nikki Amuka-Bird), the captain of a colossal spaceship, to save her again while working to destroy the Abrasax status quo. Much of this latter portion of the movie is filled with hair’s-breadth rescues, outer-space episodes (one that recalls “2001,” of all things), and especially explosions that result in the collapse of huge, flamboyantly-designed structures from which characters repeatedly emerge clinging to shards of debris to avoid falling to their deaths. (To be fair, there’s one moderately amusing sequence amid these activities when Jupiter and Caine must negotiate the bureaucratic complexities of the alien society in order to confirm her identity. Terry Gilliam, in an obvious nod to “Brazil,” portrays one of the officious clerks.)

It must be fairly obvious from the above that if “Jupiter Ascending” had an IQ, it would be on the very low end of the spectrum, and that it’s terribly derivative, borrowing from so many previous movies that it’s impossible to keep count of the references. (Even the huge hairdo Jupiter sports in an elaborate wedding scene calls to mind the one unfortunate Natalie Portman had to wear as Amidala). Kunis makes a nondescript damsel in constant distress, her charm quickly wearing thin, while Tatum—who’s shown himself capable of far better things—is thrown back into the “G.I. Joe” mode one had hoped he’d permanently foresworn. The rest of the cast is trapped in embarrassing parts (even from a wardrobe perspective—Kym Barrett was the designer), with the three Abrasax siblings definitely coming off worst. That’s especially true of Redmayne, who resembles a grotesque blend of Peter Cushing and Bette Davis as the wicked Balem.

On the other hand, the production team acquits itself with honors. The designs of structures and spaceships might be hilariously garish, but they’re expertly realized by production designer Hugh Bateup, supervising art director Charlie Reval and set decorator Peter Walpole. And except for one distant shot of Caine struggling in the tail of a giant CGI alligator creature toward the close, the visual effects are excellent. The film is also well shot by John Toll, in 3D that doesn’t call too much attention to itself, and Alexander Berner’s editing keeps things moving along at a fairly good clip. Michael Giacchino’s score, on the other hand, is loud but generic.

In the end, though, the problem is that “Jupiter” never ascends to any heights except the visual ones. This is a pretty but empty sci-fi bauble that quickly sinks in its derivative foolishness.