Dracula Untold is a stylish
straight forward action melodrama. Its story uses Bram Stoker’s legendary
vampire tale as its source, but the film serves as a prologue to the novel;
delving into the life of Vlad Dracula before his transformation into the feared
creature of the night. Luke Evans is Vlad, Prince of the Eastern European state
of Transylvania, a man who was conscripted by the Turkish Ottoman Empire as a
young boy and became the most ferocious warrior in all of Europe and the Middle
East. Having served the Turks, he has returned to his kingdom, married and started
a family. Vlad is forced to take extreme action when the Turks return to his
kingdom and demand a thousand young men for their armies and demand that Vlad’s
son Ingeras, played by Art Parkinson, become a royal hostage in the court of
the Turk’s Sultan Mehmed, played by Dominic Cooper. Vlad finds his answer in
the dangerous caves of Broken Tooth Mountain where he comes into contact with a
supernatural creature, the Master Vampire played by Charles Dance. The Master
Vampire strikes a deal with Vlad. He can have the power of a vampire for three
days to defeat Mehmed’s army. If he can resist the temptation of human blood,
he will return to being a mere mortal. If not, he will be transformed for
eternity.
Luke Evans as Vlad is the key to
the success of this film and, at times, he comes up short in his emotional
range. He is very good in the film’s action sequences, but is never quite
convincing in his role as a father. There’s a genuine desire to bring the Matt
Sazama and Burk Sharpless screenplay to life, but Evans and Art Parkinson don’t
quite nail the father-son relationship. Sarah Gadon, as Vlad’s wife Mirena,
fares a little better as her part in the story becomes the catalyst for Vlad to
forsake everything in his effort to salvage his family and his kingdom. Dominic
Cooper, however, comes up very, very short and is miscast in the role of
Mehmed. For a character that is supposed to be a feared Turkish Sultan, Cooper
struggles to bring any menace or sense of intimidation to the role. His fights
with Vlad are an anti-climax, as he spouts off more like a James Bond super-villain
than the conqueror of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The most praise is
reserved for Charles Dance, as the Master Vampire, who brings his theatrical
flourish in a scenery-chomping role that adds a new dimension to broader
vampire mythology. It’s of interest that Dance’s role as the Master Vampire was
referenced various materials for the film as being the debaucherous Roman
Emperor Caligula, but this is never mentioned in the film. The Master Vampire
makes references to how he was tricked into his fate and there is a narrative
under-current that suggests Vlad is a pawn in a bigger game.
First-time feature director Gary
Shore brings a lot of visual style to Dracula Untold. The Irishman’s background
in directing television commercials has served him well and the tone of his
film hearkens back to the 1986 Russell Mulcahy film Highlander. Like Shore,
Mulcahy transitioned his music video and television commercial experience into
feature films. The film’s Director of Photography is Jonathan Schwartzman, who
is no stranger to lensing big-budget motion pictures. He served as DP on The
Amazing Spider-Man reboot, has worked with Michael Bay on Armageddon &
Pearl Harbor and went straight from Dracula Untold to Colin Trevorrow’s
Jurassic World. The combination of Shore’s enthusiasm and Schwartzman’s
experience creates a film that is as good to look at as anything that has come
out so far in 2014.
Dracula Untold is not without its
problems. Besides the unconvincing relationship between Evans and Parkinson as
well as the problems with Cooper’s casting, the plot is under-developed. Too
much of the film feels as though it’s been done before and better; especially
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version. The biggest problem with Dracula Untold is
that it falls into the same trap as another recent release The Maze Runner.
Studios are always seeking to establish the next major movie franchise and that
make sense because the revenues from successful franchises are invested by
studios to develop new film projects. The challenge with the relentless pursuit
of a franchise strategy is the impact on a film’s plot and narrative. The
Master Vampire is an example of this in Dracula Untold. Not only is he there to
give Vlad what he needs, the Master Vampire delivers explicit dialogue in order
to establish a broader vampire mythology for additional films. It’s both
presumptive and ambitious on the part of the film’s producers and distributors
that they believe the film will perform solidly enough to warrant further instalments.
It’s a trend that also is somewhat conceited, as it take the audience who turn
up to see Dracula Untold for granted.
By no means is Dracula Untold a
bad movie. It’s stylish and its set-pieces are well staged. Horror fans may be
disappointed by the relatively small amount of blood that is spilt, but vampire
fans will enjoy the effort the film’s production team have made to create a
gothic romanticised version of Dracula before became legend.
No comments:
Post a Comment