DRACULA UNTOLD Doesn’t Make Good On Its Promise

Dracula Untold tries to be a lot of different things – a PG-13 horror movie, a historical epic, a Gothic romance, a superhero origin story – and it does it all while at the same time trying to kick start an Avengers-style shared movie universe. Whether you call that ambitious or just the obvious product of too many cooks in the kitchen, it doesn’t succeed on every front. But remarkably enough, as a pure popcorn movie, it doesn’t completely fall apart, either.

Taking place in 15^th-century Transylvania, it introduces us to a Dracula very different from Bela Lugosi’s iconic, heavily accented count. This version, based directly (although not much more accurately) on Bram Stoker’s original source of inspiration, Vlad Tepes (aka Vlad Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler), is a dedicated family man and a just ruler, but with a violent past.

Via voice-over at the beginning, we learn that as a child he was trained 300–style by the Ottoman Turks to be a heartless killing machine, he became the best of the best and slaughtered a whooole bunch of people (with a cool signature move), and then he turned his back on it for good… or so he thought.

Cue Al Pacino from The Godfather: Part III:

Now, desperate to save his people from the invading Turks, he turns to a diabolical creature living in the mountains (played by Tywin Lannister), and it goes about as well as you would expect.

Leave your knowledge of history out of this

One of the most promising things about this version of Dracula was the idea of finally exploring “the man behind the myth,” to use a tired expression. Although it’s a backstory briefly glimpsed elsewhere, including in things like Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this would have been the first movie to really focus on Dracula’s origins as the very real historical figure Prince Vlad III. Unfortunately, this is the element that works the least.

The real Vlad the Impaler ranks as easily one of the most fascinating figures in European history, even without being able to turn into a swarming mass of bats. As presented here, however, the story is garbled so much that the factual details just become a distraction for anyone with a passing knowledge of history. So, instead of a semi-accurate portrayal of Vlad Tepes that plays up the vampire angle that was already found in a lot of historical accounts – this is, after all, the guy who reputedly ate lunch amid a garden of impaled bodies and dipped his bread in human blood – we get Generic Conflicted Hero with a Dark Past No. 5,072.

I couldn’t help laughing at one line in particular where Vlad talks about how he left the bloodshed of the Ottoman Empire behind because he just wants to rule in peace. Again, this is the guy who, according to 15^th-century manuscripts, would massacre whole villages of his own people for no apparent reason and whose idea of “cleaning up the streets” meant rounding up all the sick and homeless, barricading them inside a building, and lighting it on fire.

Given stuff like that, the decision to both hew closer to the historical figure and turn a classic movie monster into a full-blown superhero complete with a Spider-Man-esque scene where he first tries out his powers just feels… off. Although either approach might have been awesome on its own, they don’t both fit comfortably in the same movie.

Bat-Man Begins

Dracula Untold suffers from a lot of other problems, too, including serious pacing issues. The opening 20 minutes plow through some pretty big, exposition-y stuff like Vlad’s backstory as a political prisoner-turned-bloodthirsty warrior-turned-defender of his people, the mounting tensions with the Turks, Vlad’s relationship to Mehmed II (played by Dominic Cooper), and the entire description of where vampires come from and what they are. That last bit, especially, suffers from a rushed explanation that leaves a few gaping plot holes.

The rest of the movie’s 92-minute run-time is mostly just a collection of CG-heavy action scenes that look like they came straight out of a video game. There are also a few moments that might elicit unintentional laughs, like when Mehmed decides to have his entire army march on Dracula’s mountain stronghold while blindfolded – because, you know, men can’t fear what they can’t see, even when it’s a gigantic hand made of bats that kills a hundred people at a time. Makes sense, right?

I could be wrong, but I suspect this scene might actually be a remnant of something that got cut last minute. According to director Gary Shore, one of Dracula’s powers in the script was the ability to conjure things that weren’t really there. In one sequence that never made it out of pre-production, he was supposed to create a huge dragon that scares the Turkish soldiers away. My guess is that that scene got cut, but stuff that related to it, like the blindfolds, didn’t. This is kind of indicative of the movie as a whole, which, with all its plot holes and stupid character decisions, bears the unmistakable mark of something that has been tinkered with too much by too many people.

On the bright side…

It’s not all bad news, though. For all its defects, Dracula Untold is still a very watchable and even entertaining movie. A large part of that has to do with Luke Evans, who makes for a solid hero. Having appeared in supporting roles in movies like The Three Musketeers, Fast & Furious 6, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, it’s nice to finally see him lead his own franchise. He brings a good amount of charisma and physicality to the part that often masks the limited material he’s given to work with.

Charles Dance is also a standout as “Master Vampire.” His scenes, which account for nearly all of the movie’s scant horror elements, are easily some of the best. There are also some gorgeous visuals courtesy of Oscar-nominated DP John Schwartzman, who shot mostly on location in Northern Ireland using 35mm film.

Not that I come down on a particular side on the whole film vs. digital debate, but it makes a huge difference here. The rocky, weather-beaten landscape provides an appropriately moody backdrop that sets Dracula apart from other historical action movies like, say, 300 and even evokes a little bit of the classic Universal Studios vibe from their original black and white monster movies.

I also appreciate the fact that, in this, becoming a vampire is a choice and, subsequently, a curse. That, in many ways, is the heart of vampire mythology, and it’s nice to see it placed front and center after being omitted from far too many vampire properties in recent years.

Perhaps the best compliment I can give is that, by the end of the movie, I’m intrigued to see where the Universal monster-verse goes from here. This was by no means a slam-dunk mega-franchise starter on the level of Iron Man, but it was entertaining enough that I’m optimistic, especially given hints towards the end of something bigger going on. Frankly, moving past the “historical” Dracula might be the best thing for this version of the character, which, above all else, just seems to need a more focused direction.

So what did you think of Dracula Untold?  Sound off in the comments!