Dracula Untold: Movie Review
I know there are a whole lot of people out there who can’t stand it when filmmakers make major changes to the origins or some of their favorite iconic characters. Whether it’s a superhero or a classic monster, fans get bent out of shape when the stories they have loved their whole life are suddenly changed by Hollywood. I am not one of those people. I could care less what you change when dealing with a fictional character. All that matters to me is that the film that is released, better be good. I never found staying true to the source material to be all that important, then again, I am not much of a book reader to begin with. “Dracula Untold” is absolutely nothing like any version of the classic vampire story I have seen before and I didn’t mind the new take on the story, I just wish the execution of it would have been better.
Director Gary Shore makes the transition from television commercials to feature films with the latest incarnation of the original vampire. What is meant to be the first film in an expanded Universal Monster’s Universe (taking a page out of the Marvel Studio’s handbook), “Dracula Untold” transforms the vampire’s origin story into an epic war story in which Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans) seeks out the Master Vampire (Charles Dance) in order to gain the power of darkness. This will allow Vlad to protect his family and kingdom from the enemy soldiers, led by Mehmed (Dominic Cooper). Once Vlad has gained the power, he has three days to use it before he reverts back to being mortal. The catch is that if Vlad feeds on blood within those three days, he will remain a vampire for eternity.
“Dracula Untold” isn’t terrible, but it’s reliant on an overuse of unimpressive CGI is distracting. I loved the sequence in which Vlad uses his powers to control a whole lot of bats to take down an invading army, but in another scene where Vlad takes out a thousand soldiers by himself was so poorly staged that I could barely tell what was going on. “Dracula Untold” is not a very good looking film either, with all of those computer generated landscapes, you would think things would look a bit more polished. I get that it’s supposed to be dark and gritty, but it could have looked a whole lot better, especially with it being a major studio film.
I will say that Luke Evans makes a compelling Vlad/Dracula and the ending leaves things open for a continuation/crossover…but I hope that if a sequel moves forward, that the people behind it can come up with something a whole lot better.
By: Marc Ferman