Review: Dracula Untold

Set in Transylvania in the 15^th Century but starring the very English Luke Evans as Vlad, a prince who refuses an order by a rival Turkish leader to hand over 1,000 youths for their army, including Vlad’s own son. This means a war is certain to break out between the two leaders, but before the battle begins (a battle Vlad’s decidedly smaller army will surely lose), Vlad goes off to a mysterious cave, in desperate search for a solution. There he makes a deal with a vampire (played by Charles Dance) whereby drinking the vampire’s blood will temporarily give him the vampire’s powers. However, he must refrain from feeding on blood for three days or else he will permanently become one of the undead. Vlad returns to take on the Turkish army…and defeats them singlehandedly. Like, he’s the only one out there fighting them, and he kills them. All of them. On his own. Killed dead. Unfortunately this results in his people (not to mention his wife, played by Sarah Gadon) being deeply suspicious of him, ‘coz y’know, he went all Dr. Manhattan on an entire army by his lonesome and he looks a lot more like Luke Ford than Dr. Manhattan. Meanwhile, the slimy Turkish sultan (played by Dominic Cooper) waits for the perfect opportunity to attack once more.

 

The kind of movie you go into expecting to hate, and end up almost kinda liking. In fact, if the film was just about a random vampire and not Vlad the Impaler (AKA Dracula), this 2014 Gary Shore (a feature film debutant) flick would be quite enjoyable. But it is, and therefore it’s not. Oh, well, it does have its moments, however, especially the cameo appearance by Max Schreck-like Charles Dance, by now an old pro at classing up crummy material (And no, I’m not talking about “Game of Thrones”, nothing wrong with that material). He’s excellent, but sadly not in the film much at all. He is more Dracula-esque than Luke Evans is, if you ask me.

 

Rather than Dracula, for the most part this plays like “Braveheart Already Told” (with a lot of “300” and “Lord of the Rings” thrown in on the cheap, too). Given any other title about any other character, this really wouldn’t be too bad. Luke Evans is genuinely solid in the lead. Unfortunately, he’s playing Dracula and this Dracula is a total pussy. This guy doesn’t even much live up to the name Vlad the Impaler, let alone the fictional Dracula. He’s Aragorn-lite, a noble hero/warrior who only impaled his enemies so that those left alive would fear him. Uh-huh, yeah he was supposed to have done that, but still it’s glossed over here, no one really questions how fucked up that is, no matter the reason behind it. We’re just meant to assume that ‘ol Vlad had noble intentions despite the cruelty of the act itself. It was just a PR stunt meant to protect his people (Never mind that the real Vlad Tepes apparently staked his own people too!). Sure, it’s trying to give us a different take, but it’s so far removed so as to be completely unrecognisable, inconsistent, and rather pointless. It’s such an easy problem to correct that it ends up being really frustrating. I could’ve enjoyed this, but I ultimately didn’t because of the false advertising.

 

There’s some nice FX as Dracula is hit by sunlight and it causes his skin to flake off his skull a bit. However, they half-arse his transition to full-on Dracula by having him betrayed and burned before he gets a chance to lose his fight against his animalistic instincts. It’s bullshit revisionism, making Dracula (who, unlike Vlad Tepes, is a fictional character, mind you. There’s nothing in history to really bring the two together as one and the same) a reluctant blood-sucker pushed to the edge. Hell, even when he feeds on his wife, it’s only because she insists, and she’s dying anyway. Basically, by casting him as hero/anti-hero, this Dracula lacks bite, and Dominic Cooper isn’t especially believable casting as the villain. I did like how he prepared for the final fight by pouring silver coins all over the ground, though. That’s clever. The ending is interesting, suggesting a modern day-set sequel, though I would be surprised to see the franchise continue all that much further if this is the best they can do.

 

The film is a lot better than expected, but it’s so hard to recommend when it’s so toothless, non-committal, and inconsistent about its title character. Revisionism isn’t always a bad thing (and once again I’ll point out that Dracula is a fictional character), but in this case, it doesn’t work because the character ends up not making any sense whatsoever. Ultimately, the film is just watchable, though Luke Ford is solid in the lead (Thank Jeebus that the casting of Aussie bogan Sam Worthington never panned out!), and Charles Dance is excellent in a creepy cameo. Better than “Francis Ford Coppola’s Shitty Version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula” at any rate (And “Dracula 2000” for that matter). Pretty good, thumping music score by Ramin Djawadi (“Game of Thrones”, “Iron Man”, “Pacific Rim”), is a highlight. The clichéd, tepid screenplay is by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless (who both went on to the Vin Diesel flick “The Last Witch Hunter”).

 

Rating: C+