Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter is an absurd and ridiculous enough title to put some off. But hey, the ridiculousness of the title is what drew me to it.
Writer Seth Grahame Smith was on tour around America in 2009, talking about his surprise best seller Pride Prejudice and Zombies when he came up with this oddball idea. People were celebrating Abe Lincoln's 200th birthday, and bookstores were stacked up with a lot of Abraham Lincoln books. And the Toilet Twilight craze was at it's peak. And he hated Twilight. He won't admit it (because he knows what Team Edward is capable of) but he did. So he put two and two together and BOOM.
Abraham Lincoln :US PRESIDENT VAMPIRE HUNTER.
I haven't read the book, unfortunately, but my friends speak often of it's awesomeness, while lamenting (or sometimes praising) it's seriousness. And I was largely oblivious to it until...
One day I switch on my PC, go to some site like AICN or Bleedingcool and WHAM Russian director Timur Bekmambetov announces that he's going to direct this one next.
Now, I am not much of a Bekmambetov fan, but I loved Wanted (the one without Salman Khan) and I recently watched and loved that horrible trainwreck of a film called Nochnoy Dozor. Timur B was a very cool director. He could take a bad script and make it look awesome. You'd hate the film, but you'd love watching it. His involvement piqued my interest, but not to a great extent.
One day, I just kinda came across the script. I googled about it. I realized the author himself has adapted his book and that Tim Burton kind of loves him (Seth Grahame Smith was hired for Dark Shadows and is currently working on Beetlejuice 2).
So, how is the script?
Gripping. I kept turning the pages. I was enjoying it immensely, but I was hating a lot of what I was reading. Abraham Lincoln was a cool character with his Kung Fu and badass Axe wielding, but a badly written one. The villain could have been good but he just fell flat. There was a lot of action... maybe a bit too much, but it was a Timur Bekmambetov film... OFCOURSE THERE'LL BE SHITTONS OF ACTION. But I realized while turning the pages... that it was just too bloody much.
The characters, the plot, the emotions... they kept on getting thinner to provide more space for the action. Suddenly, Axe-Fu had invaded the places generally reserved for character development. Subplots were swept aside. It didn't become messy... but it kept on losing its spark.
The biggest issue I had with it is that Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery beliefs were presented as a secondary thing. By Act 3, it just became an issue of "Look, slavery fuels Vampirism. So slavery bad."
The Confederates are reduced to Vampire supporters. And I hate that. I don't know if it's a mythic representation of the Confederates' evil, but it just doesn't work. It's downright insulting to history, and this insult is faced moreso because, well, it's serious. The script was so damn serious. It wanted to have fun, but it tried to stay away from silliness and consequently became more silly. The more it tried to be serious, the more it devolved into silliness.
By the end of Act 2, I was cringing at nearly every paragraph. And the climatic battle just seemed dull and Lincoln's victory over the villain, Adam, didn't feel as satisfactory. Neither did the relationships the characters developed. I didn't give a darn about any of the supporting characters, who really didn't have much to do. It was a one man show, but even in a one man show you've got to have good supporting characters to contrast against this "One man" not cardboard cut outs who spew lines once a while.
What felt satisfactory was the ending. The ending was really, really cool. And I can't say anything about it because I'll end up spoiling it for you guys.
After reading the script, I wasn't left with much hope for the film, and the dismal Rotten Tomatoes approval percentage of 38% just keeps on dipping my hopes down.
But guess what? Was Nochnoy Dozor well received? Nope. But it was fun as hell. It was such an awesome guilty pleasure. And I expect this one to turn out that way as well.
So I'm going to be there, on the 13th of July, sitting in a dark, sexy PVR theater, 3D glasses over my face waiting for Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter to start. And then I'll come back here and discuss with you guys. I'll probably have a love/hate relationship with it, but some of you guys just might love it.
Abraham Lincoln :
One day I switch on my PC, go to some site like AICN or Bleedingcool and WHAM Russian director Timur Bekmambetov announces that he's going to direct this one next.
Now, I am not much of a Bekmambetov fan, but I loved Wanted (the one without Salman Khan) and I recently watched and loved that horrible trainwreck of a film called Nochnoy Dozor. Timur B was a very cool director. He could take a bad script and make it look awesome. You'd hate the film, but you'd love watching it. His involvement piqued my interest, but not to a great extent.
One day, I just kinda came across the script. I googled about it. I realized the author himself has adapted his book and that Tim Burton kind of loves him (Seth Grahame Smith was hired for Dark Shadows and is currently working on Beetlejuice 2).
Gripping. I kept turning the pages. I was enjoying it immensely, but I was hating a lot of what I was reading. Abraham Lincoln was a cool character with his Kung Fu and badass Axe wielding, but a badly written one. The villain could have been good but he just fell flat. There was a lot of action... maybe a bit too much, but it was a Timur Bekmambetov film... OFCOURSE THERE'LL BE SHITTONS OF ACTION. But I realized while turning the pages... that it was just too bloody much.
The characters, the plot, the emotions... they kept on getting thinner to provide more space for the action. Suddenly, Axe-Fu had invaded the places generally reserved for character development. Subplots were swept aside. It didn't become messy... but it kept on losing its spark.
The biggest issue I had with it is that Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery beliefs were presented as a secondary thing. By Act 3, it just became an issue of "Look, slavery fuels Vampirism. So slavery bad."
The Confederates are reduced to Vampire supporters. And I hate that. I don't know if it's a mythic representation of the Confederates' evil, but it just doesn't work. It's downright insulting to history, and this insult is faced moreso because, well, it's serious. The script was so damn serious. It wanted to have fun, but it tried to stay away from silliness and consequently became more silly. The more it tried to be serious, the more it devolved into silliness.
What felt satisfactory was the ending. The ending was really, really cool. And I can't say anything about it because I'll end up spoiling it for you guys.
After reading the script, I wasn't left with much hope for the film, and the dismal Rotten Tomatoes approval percentage of 38% just keeps on dipping my hopes down.
But guess what? Was Nochnoy Dozor well received? Nope. But it was fun as hell. It was such an awesome guilty pleasure. And I expect this one to turn out that way as well.
-By Bob
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