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Capone finds ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER a fascinating mess!!!

Published at: June 22, 2012, 2:50 a.m. CST

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

Of course, everything about it is ridiculous right down to the title. Yes, it's positively blasphemous to tie the Civil War to vampires needing to keep slavery alive so they will have a constant supply of food. It's downright sacrilegious to turn Harriet Tubman into a soldier in the fight against bloodsuckers. And its positively insane to make Abraham Lincoln a vicious assassin, trained in the art of hunting and killing vampires. And it's because of all of those things that this bit of historical fiction had to be told. People who roll their eyes at the very idea of this story (let alone this movie) have completely lost their sense of fun.

That being said, the elements of ABRHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER that are most disappointing have nothing to do with its premise and everything to do with its execution. Almost every second of director Timur Bekmambetov's (WANTED, NIGHT WATCH) film seems single-mindedly focused on moving forward as fast and blurrily as possible. Yes, in most cases, a plot should move forward (with the exception of a handful of flashbacks), but the director (working from a script by Seth Grahame-Smith, based on his novel) never lets up. He pushes so hard to get to the next scene and the next scene and the next scene that we never get time to settle in with these characters and actually experience a bit of their lives. Character development is a thing for dreamers here. People become friends because we are told they are friends; Lincoln and Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) fall in love because we are told they do.

I'm not here to judge the movie against the source material. I don't really care if the film follows the book closely or not; the film exists as its own entity, and I'll judge it as such. That being said, it's my understanding that the book is a well-researched biography with vampire elements sprinkled throughout. The film, on the other hand, skims over the surface of Lincoln's life and career—as a child, a struggling lawyer, and eventually the president—like a stone skipping across a vast pond. I know history on film can be taxing, but there is almost no sense of time and place in this film. The environments look artificial, and the characters feel the same.

As much as I enjoyed Benjamin Walker as Lincoln, he's essentially operating at two speeds — nice guy and rage monster with an axe. He plays both effectively, but Lincoln's abilities as a statesman and strategist are woefully undervalued. His relationship with his wife is treated like something Bekmamabetov considered a distraction, and the filmmakers invent the character of Will Johnson (Anthony Mackie), a freed slave who just happens to be Lincoln's best buddy. Faring slightly better are the more ominous characters, especially Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), the man who recruits Lincoln as a boy to erase his identity and train to kill vampires. Henry has a few secrets of his own, but Cooper works beyond the restrictive script to give Henry some humanity.

Also mildly amusing is Adam (Rufus Sewell), a ruthless plantation owner and head of a great number of the vampires of the South. Sewell plays his character with a bit too much mustache-twirling villainy (no, he does not have a mustache), but there's something fun about his portrayal as well.

There are two big action sequences I like for their audacity more than their achievements in special effects. There's a chase scene with Lincoln where he's hopping over, under and through stampeding horses after a vampire. It doesn't look particularly real, but it does register high on the cool scale. The other involves a train going over a high bridge that seems to span the entirety of the Grand Canyon (not really, but it sure seems that way), with said bridge on fire and collapsing just as the train attempts to cross. It's a stupid, stupid scene, but damn if it didn't take my breath away (some of which was the result of laughing so hard).

I think everyone involved in making ABRHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER had a better movie in them. You can also smell the concessions that were granted to get this movie made. The performances are serviceable, with the occasional actor rising up during key scenes just long enough to be impressive. Walker never fails when he's delivering one of Lincoln's classic speeches. I truly hope people get more out of it than I did, but most of what I saw left me empty and wanting so much more. A few moments of exhilaration don't make up for two hours of messy fumbling...at least that's what I've always been told. God, could I set you guys up any more than that?

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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