Review of Dracula Untold (2014) by Akshay H — 14 Feb 2015

A typical action-fantasy, slightly better comparing with recent additions to the genre.

Dracula Untold is for fantasy fans craving for CGI-action sequences without much regard to the depth of the story. Honestly I do not care whether the things portrayed were historically accurate or even the plausibility of the events. I just expected a clichéd fantasy adventure involving vampires and other monsters, considering that the film was just mediocre. Well, this one is considerably better than the likes of 'I, Frankenstien' or 'The Legend of Hercules' of 2014 still its far from a good film.

Luke Evans plays Vlad Tepes (also famous as Vlad the Impaler) who returns to his homeland Transylvania after serving in Turkish empire. Mehmed (Dominic Cooper), the Turkish king decides he wants more recruits from Transylvania and demands Vlad's son to be included among them. Raged by this demand plus not having enough force for war Vlad makes a deal with the Master Vampire (Charles Dance) giving him extraordinary powers of a vampire. There is one catch though Vlad must resist his temptation for blood or else he remain a vampire forever. Is he able to control his desires or ends up sucking someones blood? Watch yourself.

While the film is briskly paced and the short run-time of around 90 minutes is really a positive still many things are quite bland. The film feels like a bad mix-up between PG-13 vampire violence and superhero action sequences. The CGI is good, but is that a special thing nowadays? The cast is great and give believable performances if not Oscar-worthy. The screenplay had a lot of potential specially with vampire-aspects which lack enough development. There is severe lack of violence with its family friendly PG-13 rating but this made the action sequences loose a considerable amount of credibility. Overall I must say Dracula Untold is an average movie which will loved fans of its genre, others won't be much amused.

RATING: [2/5].