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?

Need For Speed

For a movie based on a series of video games based on a quote from Tom Cruise in Top Gun (1986) and made by the people who make the video games, Need for Speed is not that bad a movie about street races. Now I have to admit that I am somewhat partial to the series of games, so I am going to try and be objective as I can in this review.

After a long and sometimes confusing prologue where our hero Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) is framed for murder and a scene that has us believe kids hang out at drive-in cinemas like it's still the 1950s, we get to the meat of the story. After serving two years in prison for the murder (it was downgraded to manslaughter), Tobey is out to get the real culprit, Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper). He is joined by Julia (Imogen Poots), a British car dealer who lends him a car to take part in a race set up by the reclusive Monarch (Michael Keaton) to clear his name.

So somehow the producers of this film managed to take the premise of two of the games (Need for Speed: The Run and Need for Speed: Most Wanted) and bash them together to get a movie. A very convoluted plot about betrayal and revenge is peppered in. The main characters of this movie are the super cars, all of which are playable in the games.

Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) has done an okay job trying to move away from the role that made him famous. There's no Jesse Pinkman in this movie. Although trying to play a tough guy doesn't really suit him.

Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger) does a serviceable job as the slimy bad guy. He gets under your skin with his ability to make the audience's skin crawl. Imogen Poots (Filth) does have the best acting ability out of the entire cast and I felt it was kind of wasted appearing in a film like this.

Verdict: Fans of the series of games or high end sports vehicles will enjoy. Way better than those Fast and Furious movies.