Dracula Untold Review Part 1
Some stories don’t really need telling.
Astute readers of this blog might have noticed that I have backed off on the really long blogs and am opting for shorter, more to the point diatribes. The fact is with the hours a day I spend buying hot sports cars and kissing pretty ladies on the mouth I have less time than ever before for blogging. I was also given a refresher by my SEO people about how shorter blogs are both read more frequently and have more impact with the ultimate gatekeeper of the internet, Google. Therefore I have been trying to do more posts but shorter. Quality over quantity.
That being said my one true love in blogging will always be writing movie reviews so I will try to keep on doing so, albeit less often. I do also enjoy coming up with fun lists and beating up on certain TV shows I feel have somehow betrayed me so you will see a lot of that, but for the reviews I will have to be more selective. I am also going to often break them up into smaller chunks but will include handy “next” buttons so you can follow along. For reasons I don’t want to get into too much this really helps me out.
So Dracula Untold. Honestly it wasn’t horrible. Certainly better than I, Frankenstein. It also is a movie about vampires that almost manages to get through it completely without romanticizing the crap out of them. The vampires do not sparkle, nor do they debate the morality of eating people. Of the classic story remakes it is probably the best thus far. Of course when you realize you are comparing it to the likes of Hansel & Gretel, Jack the Giant Slayer, Snow White and the Huntsman, and the Legend of Oz: Dorothy’s Return you realize it is the man who skipped breakfast competing in a hot dog eating contest against a group who crushed a breakfast buffet.
But the thing is in my reviews not horrible is not the same as good, and Dracula Untold is not good. The story has gaping plot holes right at the water line, the dialog was retro 70’s Batman TV show bad without the comedy
(I found this Batman hoodie in the big comic book t shirt category), the uber PC attempt to make the Turkish invaders not look Muslim reeked of white guilt, the protagonist was ridiculously out of the league with his antagonists (anyone else like watching baby seals get clubbed? It was about that bad), the action was some of the worst ever with everything devolving into a blur of arms, swords, and bats, the struggle and gravitas implied in the trailers was conspicuously missing, and the entirety of this action/horror film was under 10 fathoms of murky PG-13 water with a cinder block tied to its feet.
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Dracula Untold Review Part 2
The PG-13 action was particularly galling. Somehow Hollywood has come to the conclusion that if they mash all the action into an incomprehensible scrum of quick cuts and uber dense CGI shots we the audience might not notice that no one seems to be bleeding or losing significant anatomy. The veins of every casualty in this film could have been filled with Kool Aid as far as I could tell and on the rare occasion they were forced to show blood (you know, that pesky vampire drinking thing) it looks like the props guy ran down to the nearest Napa Auto Parts as it all had the consistency and color of 10/40 motor oil. Black and viscous. All this to cater to the kiddie winks. 
Let me clue you parents in on something. Your kids have no business being at a movie about Dracula or anyone who’s nickname is “the Impaler”. In fact I think your kids should be at home watching Barney videos until the day they turn 18 and then join the army (either that or locked in the Skinner box of your choice. Thanks, dad. Dracula image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt collection).
The plot holes were numerous and annoying. So the dark, head vampire is trapped in a cave at the top of Broken Tooth mountain and can never leave, yet somehow managed to sustain himself on human blood for centuries and decorate his home in a skull and broken bone motif like he found the legendary Ikea “Desecrated Corpse” collection. Um, how did he get all those fools up to his dark and foreboding man hole? Vlad had to literally free climb a cliff but the vamp ate a battalion of Turkish scouts the week before. Was there an escalator on the other side of the mountain with a sign adverting great hot wings Vlad didn’t know about? So the vamp is trapped in the cave until he finds some sucker to take on his “curse” of immortality, super speed, super strength, and the ability to transform into a swarm of bats (um, can someone email the definition of the word curse to the writers please). Gee, how about the hundreds of skulls you have been playing bocce ball with for centuries? Surely one of them at one time was inside the head of a living human who might be willing to live forever, freeing you of your imprisonment.
Incidentally, do you know how long it takes to mobilize a medieval army of 100,000 men and march them from Turkey to Transylvania? If so can you write Legendary Pictures and tell them because they seem to think it can be done in three days. Also if you are doing a historical movie about the Turkish army it is OK to have them look Turkish, not like a Aryan Army rally. They are so afraid of offending the Turks (and by extension the Muslims) that most of the Turkish cast looked like they rounded up a collection of A&F models. The film also couldn’t seem to decide on an accent for any part of the late 14th century subjecting us to American, British, Russian, very indeterminate Arabic, and at one point I swear German. The casting director clearly just wanted accents and didn’t care what kind. I wish someone who spoke fluent Klingon had applied.
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Dracula Untold Review Part 3
And of course, the torture of Vlad having to suffer from awful temptation, eventually giving in to his thirst and thus falling from grace? Remember that part that was grossly implied might be significant in the trailers and for about 10 minutes in the movie? Well, somehow he only feels the thirst when he is with his wife, not when he is out on the battlefield literally killing 1,000 men and surely covered from head to toe with blood. Did not a drop hit his lips? Then, because there is no way a major protagonist could ever be a truly bad guy he has to suck the blood of his wife after she freely offers it him in order to save his country. Oh, thank god. We were a stones throw away from seeing a character make a morally ambiguous choice there. I was in danger of actually being interested for a moment, but the writers managed to prevent the audience from falling into that hole by filling it with safe, innocuous BBQ flavored styrofoam packing peanuts. Bon appetit!
My final issue is the fact that in the first half of the film Vlad manages to kill 1,000 Turkish soldiers by himself. At that point he fell into the Superman trap in that he was so powerful his ability to fight got boring. There is no struggle to be had unless someone manages to find some Kryptonite (or in this case silver) and like I have said about Superman and Kryptonite, if Dracula is faced with someone who has covered a 20 foot circle with silver coins why doesn’t he just stand 30 feet away and throw a 50lb boulder? 
(Or in Supermans case a few miles away and burn Lex Luthors arms and legs off with heat vision? Heat vision image courtesy of the comic book t shirts category) When nothing short of deus ex machina will slow down your hero he gets really boring. Also how is it Vlad has to look at obscure texts to learn about vampires but everyone else seems to have taken a college level course on it and written their doctoral thesis on ways to kill vampires?
Anyway, a brief recap. The Sultan of Turkey wants Vlad the Impalers son and 1,000 other Transylvanian boys to be his slave soldiers and Vlad has to ask the local vampire for the power to stop him. If Vlad can not drink blood for three days he wins his mortality back (um, is that really winning?) but naturally runs out of time and has to suck his wife dry. Bad PG-13 action ensues and somehow this film managed to throw out a fishhook baited to catch a sequel.
For all my complaints it wasn’t painfully bad. Luke Evans did the best he could with the lines he was given and there was a story. Pacing was good and appropriate for the story and the old vampire scene was pretty cool. Dracula did not ever glow in daylight and most of the vampires looked pretty gross. If the area of classic story/fairy tale reboots could be considered the Dachshund races of movie making as compared to the real dog track of practically every other movie type out there then this film would definitely be the fastest Wiener dog. Of course the issue of vampires being romanticized was pleasantly ignored for the first 87 minutes of the film only to rear it’s very ugly head in the last 5 when the producers dug deep into our pockets for sequel money but still. Not horrible.
So worth seeing? Sure, why not? It’s stupidly entertaining (like most modern movies to be perfectly honest). The only way you will feel ripped off is if you think you are going to see a horror film. This is a medieval super hero action film that borders on fan fiction as written by sweaty teenage girls. There is no horror to be had here. I think this movie is safe enough for a date as long as she doesn’t want to have her IQ challenged (or half her IQ challenged). Nothing will be gained from having watched this film, but on the other hand nothing will have been lost.
the Infamous Dave Inman
@NerdKungFu
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Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 23 A Taste of Armageddon
This is an episode that strikes a cord with most nerds. I mean, which of us hasn’t simulated interplanetary war on a computer at some point? The Eminiarians and Vendikarians just took it to the next level and started executing simulated casualties. It’s like if South Korea and North Korea chose to restart hostilities but instead of fighting opted to play marathon games of Starcraft II (I think South Korea might have the advantage. Starcraft image courtesy of the video game t shirt category).
This is one of those episodes that doesn’t really spring to mind when I think of my favorites but if I see it I realize I like it a lot. It’s pretty damned cool, has a great title, a jackass that Kirk gets to put in his place, and the chance to wreak havoc upon not one but two planetary civilizations. Prime Directive? What’s that again? Also the Eminiarian sonic disruptor pistols look a lot cooler than most of the Federation weapons. Thank god in Next Gen they brought back the phaser rifle (previously only seen in one episode of TOS, Where No Man Has Gone Before).
The Infamous Dave Inman
