Starring Vin Diesel. Rated 14A. Now playing.

Undying killers who drive Aston Martins. A secret society of wizards in Manhattan. Beating hearts torn from living chests. Michael Caine calmly explaining how it all works.

On paper, this sounds like ridiculous and fun. Perhaps it should have remained on paper.

As a fantasy novel, or better still a pop-up book, one could groove on The Last Witch Hunter’s production design and setting, which postulates that white magic wizards allow an immortal outsider, Kaulder, to catch the few black magic exponents that pop up from time to time. These are kept in a sprawling jail under a New York cathedral, where they are biding their time...for now.

This is a fun idea. But movies are supposed to move. We want to follow characters that we like, growing in relation to each other, until they solve the crisis of the story.

Instead, The Last Witch Hunter jumps into the action with Kaulder (Vin Diesel) dispatching foes with ease. It’s as though the filmmakers thought that we were already at home watching this on PVR, jumping from action scene to action scene.

If the crazily inventive Timur Bekmambetov was behind the camera, this approach might have worked, but the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter director was ditched early in production, and his replacement Breck Eisner’s main idea is to shoot handheld in tight close up.

I am not sure why we are supposed to like Kaulder, apart from his car and his dreams, beautifully lit by veteran cinematographer Dean Semler. He comes off as a burly, swaggering know-it-all, effortlessly finding clues and repeatedly rescuing good witch Chloe (Rose Leslie).

Leslie, though, plays Chloe as so conflicted and likeable that she gives the movie its actual beating heart. She might be more magical than anything Kaulder can stab.