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If there’s anything more outrageous than the title of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter it’s the fact that the joke was never really cracked.
The promise of the awesome historical fiction insanity from the title alone was not delivered.
The movie is not only as serious and straight-faced as the former US president himself, but it also portrays him as having the time to secretly slice and dice the spawn of Twilight, all while trying to wrestle the confederacy and free the slaves.
Following Seth Grahame-Smith’s success in 2009 with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the author decided to mash up vampires with real American history. Co-writing the script, however, Grahame-Smith is not amusing at all. It could be because director Timur Bekmambetov, known for Wanted, slaughtered his writings into the most disappointing 105 minutes ever.
The film starts with Abraham Lincoln (Walker) giving the audience an inside to the history of his life through a narration of his diary, where Marton Czoka’s voracious vampire, bites eight-year-old Lincoln’s mother, leaving her for dead.
When Lincoln comes of age for revenge, he goes on a mission to kill the bloodsucker but when he finds himself in danger Henry Sturges (Cooper) saves him … and, spoiler alert, it turns out he’s a vampire too.
In this take on the supernatural, they cannot kill their own and need humans to do it for them. Therefore, Sturges trains Lincoln to become the ultimate vampire hunter, giving him a list of demons to diminish … cue training montage.
It’s not long before Lincoln is slaying the creatures left, right and centre, while juggling working in a shop, wooing Mary Elizabeth Winstead and, the only part that has any historical relevance, running for office.
Lincoln’s aspirations start to grow beyond killing individual vampires and he eventually wants to wipe them all out, including the original vampire Adam (Sewell).
The action in the movie, although over-the-top and insane, escalated fittingly, with Lincoln taking on single vampires at first, then moving onto a battle of galloping horses, to the finale – a train-bound showdown.
Having said this, the scenes were filled with the same kind of slowed-down madness and exaggerated visuals that Bekmambetov uses in almost all his films, and sometimes you can’t help but laugh at their irrelevance to the plot.
In addition, the repetition of the athletic Lincoln as a master of Kung Fu may have been ‘cool’ the first, or even second time around, but after witnessing the acrobat at work 50 times, you can’t help but huff and puff until it comes to an end. And, the 3D aspect of the movie didn’t make it any better.
If you’re looking to put a stake through your heart with disappointment, this is the movie for you. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is forgettable and boring. There is a plus side to it though, the vampires are actually scary, and most importantly … they don’t sparkle in the sunlight.
*Showing in Dana Cinema
