This is the first of my reviews of recent movies I've caught on DVD.
I was actually willing to wait for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on cable TV, but my wife actually bought the DVD, apparently mistaking it for Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln. Truth be told; I'm glad I saw this movie in all of its uncut, "R" rated glory, as it is a lot of fun.
ALVH is the story of the 16th president of the United States of America, and the only one to see it through a bloody civil war, but with a twist: since his youth he has hunted vampires, mainly using an ax.
The story begins in Lincoln's boyhood, in which he sees his mother attacked by a brutal plantation owner Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), which shortly thereafter results in her death. By the time he has grown into a young man (Benjamin Walker, who plays Lincoln throughout the rest of the film), he has sworn vengeance against Barton. His attempt on his life, however, fails for the simple reason that Barts is a vampire and not the easiest creature to kill. In fact, he almost kills Lincoln, who is saved by a mystery man named Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), who offers to mentor Lincoln in the art of vampire hunting, providing that he sets aside his personal quest for vengeance until Sturges says otherwise. Vampires, it seems, are everywhere, and in the course of his clandestine war on vampires, Lincoln learns that they pose a bigger threat to his country than he could ever have imagined.
I haven't had the pleasure of reading Seth Grahame-Smith's well-loved faux biography of Abraham Lincoln, but I definitely enjoyed this adaptation, and perhaps the fact that Grahame Smith helped adapt his own book for the screen helped preserve some of that fascinating revisionist sensibility for the screen. Of course, the plot (which was apparently tailor-fit for the film) is fairly easy to pick apart, but really, if the idea was simply to bring something new and quirky to the screen, I feel director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted), producer Tim Burton, and all their collaborators have succeeded.
In any event, whether Grahame-Smith adapted himself well or not, Bekmambetov definitely brought his bag of tricks to this film, with his highly stylized take on vampires, who in the 3-D presentation of this film no doubt jumped right out at viewers. The Russian director's signature is all over the highly kinetic, rather well-choreographed action sequences, though one could argue there's a dab of Zack Synder in there as well. One thing that elevates this film over anything Bekmambetov has done before is the distinct atmosphere of the film, with light touches of sepia in the lighting and a warmth that evokes something very old yet well-preserved. I suspect he was able to achieve this effect with the help of veteran cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. Composer Henry Jackman also contributes to the "olde America" atmosphere with music which, while not particularly distinct, is easy on the ears just the same.
Of course, this truly outlandish concept would not really take off without a truly solid leading actor, and this film has it in relative newcomer Benjamin Walker. Walker comes across as a young Liam Neeson (and in fact played a younger version of Neeson's character in the 2004 film Kinsey) and given that, for the longest time, Neeson was an odds on favorite for the role of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln, the casting is quite propitious. He really throws himself into this role.
It's a pity this movie was not better received; its ending precludes the possibility of a sequel and it really feels like a rather uniquely entertaining piece of standalone pop-culture.
3.5/5
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