Luke Evans (“Immortals”) stars as the immortal Vlad Tepes in “Dracula Untold” and in this never before seen telling of transformation from man into winged bat attempts to bring new life into an “undead” movie franchise.
Universal Studios is hoping to strike it rich by presenting Dracula in a whole new “light” and establishing a new universe of monsters, all co-existing together (much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe) with the Wolf Man, Frankenstein and the Mummy all returning to the silver screen with new and updated origin stories.
In this retelling, we have Dracula presented as the weak-kneed Vlad Tepes, king of his Eastern European tribe and looking in vain for a way to hold off a rampaging horde of mad Turks. But just why the Turks are mad and on a rampage it is a challenging presentation in this muddled screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless from characters created by Bram Stocker in his chilling 1897 gothic horror novel.
There is a line between sheer tension and horror and that of just plain gory ick and that is where Dracula Untold ultimately stumbles and falls. We get the fact that the Count Dracula that we all know and love is a bad guy but did we really need to see the near soft core porn of Vlad and his wife making love with their teenage son within shouting distance? Families may be forever but Vlad the Imapaler, as Stoker explained in his novel, is instead a simpering, whimpering sod who begs and pleads with the original bloodsucker–or in this case the “Master” Vampire played with an evil glee by Charles Dance (“Game of Thrones”) for aid against the Turks.
Dance gives the only life to this dull and lifeless hulk as the sloth vampire who spends his eons hiding in a cave for which Vlad, outnumbered by the oncoming Turks, immediately surrenders his humanity as quickly as a blackjack player will capitulate his children’s fortune at the blackjack tables of Macau.
Before you can fit Vlad, I mean Dracula, with his superhero cape and tights, out from the cave emerges the undead and winged avenger to slaughter every invading foe from his lands.
Of course all of the Stoker anti-vampire tactics then come into play—repelling sunlight, crucifixes and silver—again with little explanation of exactly why the undead Vlad—now Dracula would be effected by sunlight, crucifixes or silver.
Dracula Untold is “saved” by a nice performance by Evans and the presentation of Vlad’s relentless destruction of the Turks but ultimately sinks six feet deep into the grave with too much gooey romance that simply doesn’t mix with this character.
“Dracula Untold” is all very formulated, performed on a sound stage with green screens all around to allow for computerized wizards do their thing in post-production.
Yawn.
If you want to know the true story of Dracula, just read the first half of Stoker’s original vampire tale—when Jonathan Harker meets the ageless Count in his collapsing castle. There the mind works overtime in creating the setting of pure horror… where “Dracula Untold” instead bores the viewer.
Stoker’s novel is worth every moment and more than likely you, the reader, can dig deeper into the Dracula story faster than the 92 minutes that Dracula Untold lasts in the theater.
And to prove just how cold and unfeeling Universal Studios is, the ending to “Dracula Untold” brings Vlad to our modern day with Charles Dance now hot on his heels, setting up the inevitable sequel or crossover with Frankenstein or the Wolf Man.
Yawn.
Instead this Halloween season, sit back in your favorite chair, turn silently the pages of Stoker’s original Dracula novel and allow your mind to explore the “real” world of Count Dracula.
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