I took a day off from astronomy today to pursue another interest of mine. History. Specifically, Civil War History. I was not wise in my choice of methods.
Cracked.com has a fascinating article on annoying trends that make every movie look the same that lends this particular post it's title. The movie that is the subject of this post is Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and it sucked. I could just leave it at that, but I won't because I'm a good blogger and I wouldn't do that to you. However, before we go any further, I would like to say that there will be SPOILERS starting with the next paragraph. My assumption is that this movie was so bad that you will not want to see it. However, if you do, skip the next paragraph and I will distill for your reading pleasure the reasons you should not see this movie in the paragraph right after. Full disclosure, I missed the first 10 minutes. If there was something in the beginning 10 minutes that made everything in the movie make sense other than Abe loosing his mother to Vampires, I missed it. Speaking of which...
Abe Lincoln loses his mother to Vampires and spends the first half of the movie trying to find and kill the guy who did it. He succeeds. However what precedes one of the weirdest action sequences I have ever seen (no joke, there is a duel that involves jumping between the backs of stampeding horses and a gun-axe) is a training sequence that gets the full Rocky treatment and some super awkward flirting. Actually, most of the movie gets the Rocky-timelapse treatment, which means that at one point we jump from Abe campaigning to a 3 second shot of Fort Sumpter and then to Gettysburg. There is so much wrong with that chronology it's not even funny. A whole lot happens between campaigning, Fort Sumpter, and Gettysburg not the least of which is Lincoln actually getting elected to the presidency. There could have been a significant "revenge swearing moment" where Adam, the most evil of the vampires, swears his revenge; but that would make his choice to donate all of vampire-kind to Jefferson Davis for the Battle of Gettysburg pointless. This is another choice that particularly angers me because the presence of vampires kind of makes the Battle of Gettysburg pointless. The whole goal there was to get French and British support for the Confederacy, which those nations were poised to give had the Confederacy won at Gettysburg, but vampires makes the point moot. I will give the movie credit though, they did make the vampires pretty damn terrifying looking. You can also really tell that this movie was directed by the same guy that did Wanted. Even the awkward flirting between Mary Todd and Abe happens in alternating super-fast/bullet-time motion, which is pretty hilarious. The writing is also pretty terrible. It's pretty much written in the style of a B-Action movie, which makes Lincoln sound a little like Schwarzenegger at times. Also you can talk along with the movie, even if it's your first time in the theater. The movie closes with Lincoln's randomly British Vampire Hunting Sensei who turned out to be a vampire himself in a scene completely devoid of emotional significance even though Henry - that's the guy's name - had been telling Abe to kill his kind for the first half of the movie asking a new guy who at the time is getting super drunk why he's getting so drunk. It is my sad duty to say it is my opinion that this guy is probably George W. Bush. He's getting hammered and the book was published about six years ago.
It's not actually a terrible action movie if that's all you're looking for. I was looking for more of an alternate history spin on Lincoln's life. I did not get that. It made me sad. But more than that, this movie took a really interesting war (it's my second favorite behind the Pacific Theater of WWII) and punched it in the face. It legitimately brutalizes the American Civil War and I'm not just saying that because none of the generals got any mention (note, I'm not saying none of my favorite generals. I'm used to a good half of my favorite Civil War generals not getting any mention at all because they fought further west than Grant's Mississippi campaign. I mean literally none of the generals.). I mean because a fascinating war got turned into something trite and pointless. The Emancipation Proclamation was treated as a civil rights move and as a Fuck You to vampires that were not even in the war yet. Lincoln's war was personal, not ideological. It's all rendered a bit silly. I haven't read the book - even though it comes well recommended - but this movie does not serve to interest me in learning what Timur Bekmambetov glossed over in cutting his movie down to 105 minutes. But I will say that Benjamin Walker is awesome. In the brief moments that he says Lincoln-stuff, he really embodies the 16th president. And he really looks like Lincoln in profile. The make up and score of this movie are amazing. But that's not enough to recommend the movie to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment