Let's have
some fun with history today, shall we? As we open on
'Dracula: Untold' we are told the story of young Vlad, prince
of the house of Draculesti, and how as a child he was
voluntary given to the Turkish Sultan and forced to be become
a child soldier for the Turkish army. That's all
true. The movie didn't bring in Vlad's younger brother
who was also given to the Turks, but he was alleged to be much
better looking than Vlad and so when Vlad grew up in this
movie to look like Luke Evans, we couldn't very well have
someone in this movie better looking than him, now could
we? Eventually Vlad comes on back home, assumes rule and
even has a war with the Turks. All that is true
too! Until, of course, Vlad turns into a bloodsucking
monster beast. History class over. Still, I did
not hate this movie and I went into 'Dracula: Untold' fully
expecting to.
Life is good in the land Transylvania as Vlad is a kind and
gentle monarch, married to the beautiful Mirena (Sarah Gadon)
and the two of them have a precocious young son Ingeras (Art
Parkinson). Vlad however knows that trouble is on the
horizon when he finds a gashed Turk helmet in a nearby
stream. The Turks must be coming. Personally, my
initial concern would've been less the helmet, but more how
the gashes got into that helmet, by then I'm not a monarch, so
what do I know? Somehow Vlad has determined that this
helmet originated from a cave in a mountain… don't ask me how
he came to that conclusion, but he has, and so it's up to the
mountain for him and his men to investigate. He won't
like what he finds. Still, that thing in the mountain,
as bad as it is, it can't leave that cave in the mountain so
if you leave it be, no problem.
Then the Turks come a calling for real. They have
determined that they want a thousand Transylvanian boys for
the Sultan's army, and that includes Vlad's son. Vlad
can't have that. And while Vlad is a badass like few
badasses have ever been, he doesn't have what it takes to take
out the Sultan's massive army. But what if he had a
taste of that power that the beast in the mountain
possesses? This beast (Charles Dance) is more than
willing to give Vlad a taste because if things work out his
way, he will be free of his curse, passing it along to
Vlad. There are some Gremlin Rules that Vlad would need
to adhere to keep this from happening, but until then, he has
the power to protect his land.
Vlad is
pretty darned amazed at the awesome powers he now
possesses. Sure there's the insatiable thirst for blood,
the fact that silver and sunlight burns his skin off, the
unfortunate fact that his own people see him as a spawn of
Satan but whatever, he can now protect his people from that
jerk of a Sultan (Dominic Cooper). Besides, if he
doesn't feed in three days, all reverts back to normal.
Alas history tells us, that is if this were true and all, that
eventually Vlad must feed on something or the monster we know
today as Dracula will not be born, but in between time there
are Turks to slaughter and, well, impale. But that
Sultan, man is he troublesome. Shockingly so. I
mean like… really Dracula? This one guy is giving you
trouble after you've just effortlessly slaughtered thousands
of his toughest soldiers? Anyway, prophecy fulfilled,
monster born, eternal love preserved. Or something like
that.
The concern, going into 'Dracula: Reborn', was that we were
going to get a silly pseudo horror movie similar to 'I,
Frankenstein', but fortunately we got something much better
than that. The movie is still kind of silly, and like
that bastardized Frankenstein, this Dracula is more Dark Super
Hero than horror legend, but director Gary Shore does a better
job merging the action elements with the vampire legend,
combined with some nice cinematography and nice special
effects, to craft what feels like a much more complete
film. Of course saying something is better than 'I,
Frankenstein' is faint praise, but there it is.
Front and center driving the narrative is Luke Evans, and
while Mr. Evans might not be the rangiest actor around, he
does do pain and intensity very well. You will feel Vlad's
strained pain as he makes a litany of increasingly difficult
decisions, and with these decisions made, Evans brings his
trademark steely glare to sell the audience that Vlad means to
see this through to the bitter end. Charles Dance also
brings the creepy with his Nosferatu schtick, giving us
glorious recollections of his tour de force performance in
'The Golden Child' thirty years ago… at least I thought it was
tour deforce… but that would about do it for the good
performances in this movie as Sarah Gadon is beautiful but
bland and Dominc Cooper's Sultan was at best under cooked.
But the movie does move, the action is brisk and exciting,
Luke Evans brings the intensity and it seemed to have some fun
playing with the myth of Dracula. Now as a bit of an
editorial, I had read some dismay about the relatively tame
PG-13 rating of this film, with some of us out there thinking
you simply cannot have a decent Dracula film without excessive
gore and boobs. I just want to throw out there that Bela
Lugosi and those guys did okay within those limitations, so it
can be done. But if you absolutely need to see gore and
boobs in your Dracula movie, then by all means, watch Dario
Argento's 'Dracula 3D'. I double dog dare you.
