Review of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) by Cbeckman25 — 21 Jul 2012

Just saw Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I have lots of mixed feelings towards this movie so lets see if I can attempt to review it. First of all, one of the reasons I love film so much is because it allows us to see all of these absolutely crazy and impossible things. So President Lincoln as a kick-ass vampire slayer? Bring it on. I'm totally game for a ridiculous plot like that. But there is a difference between a ridiculous plot and the way it is executed. I think playing this movie completely straight is smart but many times the movie seemed to buy into the cheese factor, mainly with the dialog. If the movie took itself way more seriously through out the entire movie then it would have been even better. It seemed to very carefully walk that line of full-fledged movie and totally corny Sci-Fi movie. Another thing that didn't help was the pacing. It was kinda all over the place.

As far as the action goes it was great... when ever there was action. I'm saying this movie is extremely light on action, I'm just saying that I was expecting way more than what we got. So those critics claiming wall to wall action? Don't read into that to much. But when we did get action it was great. The climatic train sequence was amazing and just watching The President of the United states wielding an axe like a total bad ass and slicing up vamps was a lot of fun. There was an action sequence with horses that ended up being much more cheesy than it looked in the trailer but other than that the action is really solid. And speaking of President Lincoln, Benjamin Walker was PERFECT as Abraham Lincoln. He completely sold Lincoln as a killer of vampires. The whole cast was great as well. Another thing I felt the movie did well was incorporating the actual history in the secret history of Honest Abe. I think they really did a good job of balancing out Lincoln's secret life as a Vamp Killer while also showing him actively pursue to become president. As the movie was coming to a close I thought, "Ok, this was pretty ridiculous but still admittedly awesome movie. Not the best of the Summer but not the worst" And then all of a sudden the movie ends in such a way that it completely changed my mindset on the movie. It took the ridiculousness of my "Ridiculously Awesome" description of the movie and completely blew it up. The little tag at the end of the movie just made this movie completely awesome and some how it made all of that cheesiness worth it. The ending made me totally buy into the cheese factor. Knowing now how it ends I am extremely anxious to go back and watch it to see if my complaints have disappeared. I would absolutely kill to see a sequel to this movie based on the way it ends.

All in all I enjoyed the movie and like I said earlier, It's not the best movie of the summer, nor is it the worst. I'd give it a solid C+. But I wonder if that score might go up over the next few days because I can't stop thinking about that ending and how it completely changed the way I viewed everything that came before. So if you got nothing better to do this weekend and if you've already seen Brave, then I'd suggest this movie to anyone who saw the trailer and was intrigued by what they saw. If you saw the trailer and didn't like it then I don't think the movie will change your mind.