Thursday 9 October 2014

Dracula Untold Movie Review!!!

Now this is what vampires are supposed to be like! Forget Twilight - watch Dracula Untold!!!



Finally!!!  Vampires are cool again!

While Dracula Untold is far from perfect, it still does a great deal to right the wrongs done by the Twilight saga, Vampire Diaries and other recent pop trash.

Not cool


Vampires are no longer camp shiny teeny-bop idols.  They are once again brooding, suave creatures of the night, mostly thanks to Luke Evans’ charismatic performance.

Cool!

It is no secret that the Irish author Bram Stoker based his Dracula character on the real historical figure, Vlad III Drăculea AKA Vlad the Impaler, who was a member of the House of Drăculești and son of Vlad II Dracul (the so called ‘Dragon’ in the Order of the Dragon).  The movie however tells the fictional albeit intriguing tale that Vlad the Impaler was himself the vampire known as Dracula.



The story goes that Vlad, had left behind a life of violence and returned to a life of peace as the prince of Transylvania.  However, good things often come to an end.  Turkish conqueror Sultan Mehmed demands 1000 sons of Transylvania join his army, including even Vlad’s own son. 



With an army as vast as the seas, Vlad sees no choice but to venture to Broken Tooth Mountain where legend foretells of a cursed man, Caligula, a powerful sorceror and demon with mystical powers who might be able to help.  And help he can, he bestows Vlad with great strength and speed, the ability to communicate with and see through the creatures of the night, but in return he is left with an insatiable thirst for blood, he cannot go out in the sunlight and has an aversion to silver (I thought that was werewolves not vampires).  Ultimately, the greatest vampire of all time, Dracula is born.



Can Dracula save his people and loves ones?? You’ll have to watch to find out.

Dracula Untold is a decent film but not a great one.  The first half an hour or so really had a lot of potential, unfortunately this potential is never fully realized.  So much could have been done or explored with the origin of the greatest vampire that wasn’t. 



Things picked up in the second half of the movie and I found myself being surprisingly engaged in a movie that I had almost written off.

The ending was what nailed the movie for me and stopped it from being an overall disappointment.  The strong performances really draw you in and make you feel for these characters and their plight.

The suprisingly powerful finale makes this worth watching and left me really looking forward to the next installment.



There are rumours that Universal will be creating something of a monsters version of the Avengers with Dracula, the Mummy, Wolf Man, Frankenstein and others.  This seemed ridiculous to me initially but now I’m quite interested to see what they can do. 

Ultimately I just want to see more of Dracula.  Luke Evans nails the character with enough charm and charisma to kill off any memory of the terrible Twilight saga and restore some of the respect, myth and cool status vampires used to have.



An imperfect movie not quite living up to it’s potential, this is nonetheless a decent movie still worthy of your time.

Check it out!

Rating 3.5 out of 5



Bobby

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