Dracula Untold

Gary Shore's Dracula Untold sets out to tell us the totally true and not at all embellished story of how the most famous vampire ever became a prince of the night. Or is the devil? Anyway, the only thing that comes close to a history lesson in this movie is a five minute sequence that doesn't really know what its talking about at the start of the movie.

Vlad Dracul (Luke Evans) is the prince of Transylvania whose kingdom belongs under the umbrella of the Turkish Empire, led by Mehmed (Dominic Cooper), a white guy in make up to make him look Turkish (seriously there was better casting of Hollywood films in the 50s and that was a time when everybody was openly racist). So Vlad angers Mehmed by not adhering to his wishes and thus condemns his people to be slaughtered because he doesn't have an army. Vlad travels to Broken Tooth Mountain, where he knows a vampire lives for his help. The vampire Caligula (Charles Dance) agrees to give him the power to stop Mehmed's army. (Just a side note, the vampire Caligula is apparently the Roman emperor).

This movie does have some admittedly spectacular fight sequences early on, but soon they get a little repetitive, like a side-scrolling video game. Once Vlad figures out how to use his vampire powers against the armies of Mehmed, you'd think the movie would be over. Instead we have to sit through another hour of people getting thrown in the air.

We get a couple of decent performances. Luke Evans definitely knows how to brood and this role calls for a lot of that. Sarah Gadon plays Vlad's wife and is one of the only redeeming characters of the film. Having Charles Dance (Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister) in your film might bring some gravitas to your cast, but when you don't use him at all, it's a wasted opportunity.

I'm a bit worried that this is the launchpad for Universal's revival of their monster movies of the 30s and 40s. They were fantastic films, but the quality of this movie and those to come might taint the nostalgia for me.

Verdict: A very drawn out and overdone version of Dracula. Reading Vlad the Impaler's Wikipedia page is not only more exciting, but you'll learn something too. Also, what was with the present day ending?