It’s sad to see Universal marketing Dracula Untold as some sort of continuation of their classic monster series, which began with Lon Chaney back in the early ’20s and saw Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi take over in the ’30s, with Lugosi playing what may be the most iconic version of Dracula to date. To suggest this glossy, all over the place prequel to Bram Stoker‘s tale is in any way comparable to the now-considered classics is to have your head buried in the sand. Certainly the non-discerning young audience this film targets may find it somewhat entertaining, but if you’re looking for any semblance of logical storytelling and/or narrative intrigue you’ve come to the wrong place.
All begins as you’d expect, with a lengthy monologue telling us it’s the “year of our Lord 1462”, which, I have to ask, does adding “of our Lord” add anything to that statement? Is it meant to sound distinguished, or “of the time”? What is the point, especially within the midst of a PG-13 schlock fest such as this? We also come to learn the voice over telling us of Vlad the Impaler’s might as a young warrior is that of his son, a character that hardly has a role in the film other than being a plot device.
Moving along, Vlad (Luke Evans) has put his impaling ways behind him, settled down with his wife, Mirena (Sarah Gadon) and son (Art Parkinson) as peace has settled over Transylvania. That is, until Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper), a bad guy for the sake of being bad, demands 1,000 of Vlad’s young boys to beef up his army. Among those boys would be Vlad’s son, a sacrifice he seems to decide he’s willing to make until Mirena convinces him otherwise.
Once Vlad decides on war with Mehmed he goes in search of assistance, which leads him to a cave in Broken Tooth Mountain, where a darkness lurks. That darkness is a demon, one of the first vampires played by Charles Dance (“Game of Thrones”), confined to his darkness until he finds a successor. Vlad decides to accept the demon’s offer, which entails the use of his powers for three days and if he can resist the resulting thirst for blood he will be free of the “curse” and be afflicted no longer. Such a deal, 1.) save his people from the war at their doorstep and 2.) not be cursed to be a vampire forever. Done. Vlad drinks, war ensues, bad guys thwarted, return to human form, movie over… right? WRONG!
I don’t want to get too deep into spoilers so I won’t tell you if Vlad the Impaler becomes the Lord of Darkness known as Dracula. After all, this is an “untold” story so I can only assume none of you know how it turns out. Yet, I’m not entirely sure even I or first time screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless even know how it turns out considering the tacked on ending that takes things from the late 1400s into present day. The ending meant as a stinger for future sequels is so nonsensical you have to wonder what they were even thinking by adding it on. But that’s just it, they probably weren’t thinking. At all.
Before the movie began I was joking with a few people sitting next to me, taking a hypothetical approach to grading the movie under the premise all movies start out with an “F” grade and things only get better from there. With a 92-minute running time it immediately jumped to a “D-” and then the realization it wasn’t in 3D bumped it to a “D”. So, even before a single frame of the film was shown Dracula Untold was already showing promise. Then it began and nothing could save it.
Not only does this come from a couple of first time screenwriters, but this is director Gary Shore‘s first feature film and it shows. And it’s not the unintelligible, PG-13 action scenes that are the issue, but considering they’ve given over to trying to turn Dracula into some sort of anti-hero with a superhero origin story, it’s the earnestness with which they try and pretend they are telling any kind of cogent drama that’s so galling.
At one point, Mirena, who is more of a Lady Macbeth than a loving wife in many ways, gives her husband an encouraging speech. You can tell it’s meant to be deep stuff and it’s intended to serve as some emotional heart of the story, but it just ends up falling flat. This isn’t a movie about speeches or dialogue. It’s a movie about CGI bats, incoherent battle sequences, Dominic Cooper’s eyeliner and a horrible, horrible, horrible final battle between Vlad and Mehmed that is honestly shocking in its stupidity.
Oftentimes it’s easy enough to soak in these PG-13, made-for-franchise-money C-movies, but Dracula Untold isn’t such a case. Most often these movies are stupid but tolerable. Dracula Untold is so increasingly stupid and without any measure of worthwhile action, even at 92 minutes it grows tiresome. Then to be left walking out scratching my head wondering what the ridiculous final scene is meant to suggest was the icing on the cake.
