Movie Review: “Dracula Untold” (Rated R)

Published at 5:05 am, October 10, 2014

EastIdahoNews.com Staff

Jim Spellman/WireImage(NEW YORK) — It would be too easy to say Dracula Untold should’ve stayed untold, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. It’s nice to have a story about vampires that doesn’t involve emotionless actresses and actors who look like they were taken from the set of a Calvin Klein underwear shoot. Instead, we get a Crusades-era origin story about the vampire that started it all .

The “untold” part of the title is a bit of an overstatement. Even if you’re only superficially aware of the Dracula mythology, you probably know many believe the inspiration for British novelist Bram Stoker’s Dracula was the 15th century Romanian Prince Vlad the Impaler. The real Vlad was just a little different than the one Luke Evans portrays in this movie. For starters, I just don’t think the real Vlad the Impaler had an English accent.

This Prince Vlad rules a peaceful kingdom, partly because he’s murdered perhaps thousands of people and placed them on pikes — they don’t call him “the Impaler” for nothing. But Vlad is now a kinder, gentler man who just wants to hang out with his wife (Sarah Gadon) and his young son (Art Parkinson). Enter Sultan Mehmed (Dominic Cooper) Ottoman Empire, who demands Vlad give up 1,000 of his kingdom’s young boys to train as soldiers in Mehmed’s army — including the prince’s son. Vlad doesn’t have the troops to take on Mehmed, so you know what they say: desperate times call for vampire measures.

Vlad visits a cave inhabited by a gnarly vampire (Game of Thrones’ Charles Dance), seeking the monster’s strength. Believing Vlad can set him free and help lift the curse that has kept him the cave for centuries, the master vampire agrees to make Vlad like him, with the vampire strength and tricks that, maybe, will help him defeat Mehmed.

For a movie that sets out to tell an original tale about an old story, Dracula Untold is decidedly unoriginal. Take away some decent battle sequences and respectable visual effects, and we’re left with ham-fisted dialogue and clichés. But that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable, if you’re willing to check your brains at the theater door.

Two out of five stars.

SUBMIT A CORRECTION