Review of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) by Ron R — 17 Apr 2015

Entertaining pop fantasy delivers on the action and explosions but could have used a little tongue in the cheek to temper the solemnity surrounding Abe's crusade against the vampires. As with his previous efforts like Wanted and Night Watch, this film proves there is no doubt director Bekmambetov has mastered using visual FX in an action sequence like few others.

Michael Bay should hang around him and take lots of notes, as both directors are fond of ludicrously OTT sequences, but where Bay simply doesn't trust the image or staging to fend for itself, Bekmambetov isn't afraid to indulge in the sheer lunacy of it.

Case in point is a fight in the midst of a hundred horse stampede where vampire and Lincoln fight each other as they leap, dodge, and even fling the horses around them. It's a scene that would make Bugs Bunny shake his head in disbelief, but Bekmambetov doesn't care.

And there is where the fun of the movie lies. The finale aboard a train racing across a burning bridge finally tops Under Siege 2: Dark Territory for most ridiculous train action scene in film history.

Rufus Sewell, an actor whose appeal is so under appreciated it's a crime, gives another winning villain turn as the vampire who would rule the South. He's just perfect in balancing the menace and the slight wink to the audience that this story is a bunch fun malarkey.

Sadly, the rest of the cast seems to think they are making a new installment to North and South. Benjamin Walker who played a young Liam Neeson in Kinsey, beats his older reincarnation in playing Lincoln (Neeson missed out the part in Spielberg's long gestating bio-pic) and wields the ax in ways that would be the envy of any rail splitter.

Walker manages to make Lincoln likable in his scenes courting a beautiful Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the future Mrs. Lincoln and also quite the badass when he's taking down bloodsuckers. However his performance is so straight that it makes scenes of more dramatic weight unintentionally funny.

Playing it all as farce would have undone the picture as well; the movie does play it's horror and tension for real which adds to making the picture work as well as it does. However having some nod to the audience that this is a fun popcorn filler and we're not really taking seriously this idea that our 16th president is going to beat back a vampire uprising would have helped.

Moments like where Mary Todd Lincoln chastises her husband for not sharing his secret night time activities after their son is killed play awkward. Maybe it's because I'm in the middle of reading Team of Rivals, but I found some of the faux drama unnecessary.

A movie with a premise this ridiculous could have used more of the humor and temper of Big Trouble in Little China. Nonetheless, it's a mostly entertaining adult cartoon (plenty of heads rolls, blood splatters and even a breast here and there) that is sadly short on the humor department.