Oh Dracula. What a scamp he was.
Really, you'll forgive that guy for impaling thousands of people,
because in this movie he's decided to forget all that and become a
nice guy. Really, he's got this hot wife (Sarah Gadon, from “Belle”
and completely wasted here) he's really nice to, and he's got this
adorable son who he's really
nice to. Better yet, that son played the youngest Stark kid, Rickon
from “Game Of Thrones,” so you know he's used to being in some
pretty stressful situations.
Still not sold? Well, when he takes
off his shirt you can see all those awful scars on his back and know
he's had a tough life. What? Well, of course you can see his abs.
Yeah, they're pretty fantastic, but I wasn't even thinking about
that.
But this nice guy, played this time
around by Luke Evans, the Bard
from “The Hobbit” movies, is mostly known as Vlad,
ruler of Transylvania. He really wants peace, but those darn Turks
just won't leave him alone. These guys prove they're just the
opposite of Drac-I mean, Vlad, by interrupting their Easter
celebration, (Gasp! Godless!) demanding their usual tribute, along
with 1,000 boys for their army. This doesn't sit well with Vlad,
because apparently he impaled all those people after his own father
gave him to the Turks, and he was forced to become one of their
soldiers. Vlad refuses to give up his son, so the Turks declare war.
Vlad knows that Transylvania doesn't stand a chance against them, so
he decides he must find another way to save his family and his
country.
But he managed to
escape from a vampire in a cave earlier (played by Charles Dance, aka
Tywin Lannister from “Game Of Thrones,” how exactly do you manage
to waste him??!!!), so he goes back and asks him for help.
Surprisingly, he agrees, with a catch or two. If Vlad drinks his
blood, he will gain great power. And if he can stop himself from
drinking blood for three days, he will become human again. But if he
gives in, Vlad will be a vampire forever, and the older vampire will
be released from the cave he is trapped in to wreak havoc and
revenge, all that bad stuff.
Desperate, Vlad
agrees, and we are off pretty quick. Very quick, since when he gets
back, the Turks are already attacking his castle. So yeah, he has
three days to defeat the Turks, and also convince his own people not
to kill him. Hijinks!
In order to enjoy this movie you have
to accept a few things. Accept that Vlad doesn't go out in the day,
but that later on he removes this obstacle by having clouds move over
the sun. Accept the reformed bad guy who's completely good again,
and thus, the Turks are all bad. And the portrayal of them? At
least a little racist. Accept that “Dracula Untold” will use
Vlad's historical reputation
and try to justify it by saying the Turks made him do it. (I
mentioned it was a little racist?) Accept that almost every scene
with his wife after the transformation will have him fighting the
urge to drink her blood, but he can hug his son without consequences.
Accept that he can attack the Turks with a huge number of bats, and
none of their little batty bodies will get damaged. Accept that
after becoming a vampire, he will retain his personality, but the
ones he changes will turn into clichés and decide to kill all
humans. Accept that the older vampire won't do anything to Vlad
until a few hundred years later?
Action movies aren't known for their
sense of subtlety or light touch, so a few plot holes are to be
expected. But there's just too much pileup here. The actors all do
their best with what they've given, and Luke Evans has the sort of
likeable charisma and the willingness to bulk up that makes action
movies at least passable. The rest of the cast-including Dominic
Cooper as the underexplored Sultan Mehmed-who was apparently once
like a brother to Vlad and actually gives the final standoff some
suspense-also give it their all, but they can't overcome sloppy,
disjointed filmmaking and uneven script (that shamelessly steals from
every other medieval action movie made in the last 15 years) in
general. On the upside, at least Luke Evans will be relieved that
his love interest doesn't have sex with Dominic Cooper like she did
in “Tamara Drewe.”
This failure is not only disappointing,
it's unsettling, since Universal is apparently in the midst of
relaunching all of its monster movies and tying them together,
“Avengers” style. The first effort, “The Mummy,” is slated
to hit theaters April 22, 2016. If this is what we can expect,
they'll be about as successful as DC Comics movies without Batman.
Grade: D
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