Dracula Untold is a prime example of a film that is mislabeled, released at the wrong time, and that carries unfortunate baggage with it. If you think it's a Halloween scare-fest, a Gothic romance, or even remotely like anything associated with the Dracula story ever, you're in for disappointment.
Yet it's an interesting concept and a decent (if familiar) story. A re-imagining of a generic vampire myth (that only happens to carry the name Dracula), it feels like anything but a vampire movie. It's not really a romance -- even remotely erotic -- and it's not really horror, though there are a few moments of sentiment and violence. It's essentially an action movie about an archaic antihero who has to navigate his duty to himself, his family, and his kingdom in the face of a cruel higher power. In fact, it often feels like Stephen Sommers's (also re-imagined) Mummy franchise in its focus on action and a creature that casually uses supernatural powers; it does not, however, share Mummy's wit or humor.
Luke Evans (The Raven, The Hobbit trilogy) is great as Vlad the Impaler, the brave prince of Transylvania under Turkish rule. Paternal, brooding, charismatic, and downright hot, Evans skillfully performs the rote character with heart and style. But then, I would watch him do anything. I find the film's antihero approach to the character wildly fresh, and I can't get enough of the character's "wholesome" sex appeal. That's not a very articulate way of putting it, but what I mean is that he isn't an exotic Other (Bela Lugosi), a handsome gentleman (Frank Langella), or a shape-shifting mesmerizer (Gary Oldman). He's somber, passionate, and stereotypically masculine in ways I've never seen Dracula played; he's a loving husband, a devoted father, and a sacrificial ruler. I said the film is hardly romantic, but in several ways I see the passion Evans shares with his character's son as arrestingly romantic.
This film -- and more interestingly, the title character -- wisely stays far away from an optimism all too common in other fantasy/action films (Maleficent, for example). I said earlier that it never fully feels like a vampire film, because it lacks our cultural horror of bodily fluids, foreign invasion, and sexual perversion/manipulation. Charles Dance provides the central means of bugaboo in the film, as the sorcerer/vampire living in an isolated mountain cave, and his scene with Evans is the only freaky, "normal" vampire moment in the film. Creepy, disfigured old man who shares his blood and performs arcane magic. That's normal, right? I find rather disgruntling, moreover, the suggestion that the horror (stemming from the war violence in this tale) comes from Muslim culture, as the vampiric Turkish Sultan (Dominic Cooper) demands a tribute of youth to serve in his army. Vlad, the quasi-Christian prince who speaks with a British accent, sells his soul to Satan to stop the Sultan, who speaks with a more exotic accent which sounds weirdly like Bela Lugosi's Dracula accent. Rather than, like in Francis Ford Coppola's version of the story, attempting to bridge the gap between foreign and domestic or Christian and Other, Dracula Untold is a very deeply Christian tale that not-so-subtly pits itself against Islam.
Though its plot is similar to many up-beat, mainstream action films, the film's aesthetic thrives in heavily textured darkness. First-time feature film director Gary Shore leaves a lot of room for special effects that don't always work, but he does find occasionally nice visuals. He and cinematographer John Schwartzman (Pearl Harbor, The Amazing Spider-Man, Saving Mr. Banks) especially succeed with effective lighting, notably in Dracula's final fight with the Turkish Sultan. My favorite technical aspect of the film is its costumes, designed by Ngila Dickson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Blood Diamond); the armor Evans wears is just fabulous.
The film arguably has a happy ending, but it's also pretty dark, so I'll leave that one up to you. Besides a few funky plot holes and too-familiar melodramatic turns, Dracula Untold is a fully functioning dark fantasy and a serviceable supernatural action picture. Overall, it's an entertaining hour-and-a-half to be sure, but it is not, sadly, particularly memorable.
IMDb: Dracula Untold
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