Movie review: Dracula Untold

Hello!

Sorry for not posting this week but my computer crashed again and I have only just now got it back. However, now I will give you very informative Dracula Untold review, so, I hope you will forgive me for the lack of posts this week.

Vibe

I actually haven’t seen a real fantasy movie in a while. I mean, I have seen a lot of science fiction and superhero movies but those are not real fantasy. The real fantasy for me is a thing you can’t explain and can’t imagine happening in a real life. Having said that, I really liked the vibe of Dracula Untold and enjoyed the movie much more than the rest of the people who had seen it. The reviews form the critics and Rotten Tomatoes score were quite bad and Universal expected it to earn much more, especially when they are trying to launch their monsters’ cinematic universe. In addition, as a huge fan of period movies, I fancied the medieval-ish setting of the film and all those historical costumes and cool sword fights. True historic Middle East and Eastern European setting also pleased me, as I live in a country that is on the verge of being in Eastern Europe – I mean we (my nation) call ourselves part of the Western world but that doesn’t change the fact that our country is situated quite deep into the northern/eastern part of the continent.

Acting

Luke Evans was great in the role of Vlad Tepes/Dracula. I have previously seen him in Clash of Titans and The Three Musketeers. Although both these movie were kind of box office flops and fails with the critics, I enjoyed Luke’s acting nonetheless. He was also great villain in Fast&Furious 6 and don’t even get me started on how excited I am about the third and final Hobbit film.

Another, one of my favorite actors, is Dominic Cooper and I really liked him in this film as well. I have seen quite a few of his movies, starting with Mama Mia (when it came out, I was 11 and going through a phase of worshiping ABBA, so that movie was perfect for me) and I am also really excited that he will be reprising his role as Howard Stark in the Agent Carter TV series.

The third actor I would like to mention is, of course, Charles Dance. As a huge GoT fan, I was really happy to see him in this movie, his role was quite small, but he did an amazing job with what little time he had on screen. I am really sad that Tywin (his character on GoT) died at the end of season 4 but I hope we will see him in flash backs in season 5.

The main female character – Vlad’s wife – was played by Sarah Gadon. I wasn’t familiar with her work before and I got to say – she was quite disposable in this movie. Anybody could have played her character.

Lastly, props to the young kid playing Vlad’s son- Art Parkinson– he was really good. I didn’t recognize him while watching the film but, doing the research for this article; I found out that he used to be on Game of Thrones too – playing Rickon Stark. I knew he seemed familiar!

Visuals

I liked the visuals and the overall dark and appropriate mood for the film. The scenes where vampires were turning into bats looked cool and the last “burning alive in the sunlight” scene was also great. Charles Dance also looked amazing in his costume – the make up was superb. I also really liked how the Dracula looked when he went into full on vampire mode with his eyes glowing, skin darkening and fangs gleaming.

Story

I liked the overall plot, it differed form the source material but practically everything in Hollywood nowadays does so. Moreover, I loved the fact that the movie was only half and hour long because I am so tired of these super long films that can’t seem to wrap up. The plotline of “sometimes we don’t need a hero, we need a monster” reminded me of Batman’s infamous quote: “I am not a hero Gotham needs, I am the one it deserves” or something liked that. The final acts (SPOILER) of Dracula turning his last people into the vampires, defeating Mehmed in the last dual and demolishing last pieces of sultan’s army in an uneven fight were really great scenes. However, the saying goodbye to his son and sacrificing himself and all his followers was predictable but enjoyable twist. Soul mates/star crossed lovers meeting in a different period and unexpected ‘friend’ from the past were also quite nice predictions of a possible sequel.

All in all, the movie was quite good, though, you can definitely find a handful of clichés in it. The visuals and acting were superb while the story might lack intensity for majority’s taste. I enjoyed it nonetheless and I hope Luke Evans will reappear as Dracula in the future Universal’s monster movies.

Rate 4/5

Trailer: Dracula Untold trailer

(Google Images)