I think it's safe to say I'm taking a
break from the Andy Sidaris collection for a bit. Just a quick break
though, if I can survive Bayformers, Twilight, and all NINE Hellraiser films, a bunch of Playboy Playmates armed with
guns and implants sure aren't going to stop me! Today I thought we'd
take a look at 2014's Dracula Untold, which was the directorial debut
of Gary Shore. Shore made a name for himself directing commercials
for companies such as Gatorade and Adidas, which I guess is all the
qualifications you need to make a feature film in this day and age.
Dracula Untold had a case
of Development Hell to make it to the silver screen, as it was
originally set to be a big budget film by Alex “Dark City”
Proyas and starring Sam Worthington. That didn't work out because
the budget was getting sky high, so it was handed off to Shore and
the writing team of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. Sazama and
Sharpless are currently hard at word writing the script to MISSILE
COMMAND, which is based off the Atari video game where three lumps of
pixels blasted pixels at incoming pixels. Should be riveting.
They're also credited with the screenplay for the upcoming Clue
remake, because THAT totally needed a remake. I'm telling you,
reboots of the Princess Bride and the Godfather are
right around the corner...
After production was finished,
distributor Universal Pictures saw what Marvel was doing with their
Cinematic Universe and said “Me too! Me too!” so ordered
reshoots to make the film a springboard to their own version. This
was to be a reboot/reimagining/remake of their Universal Monsters
movies, featuring characters such as Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman,
Frankenstein, etc etc etc. Oh goody, so that means ALL movie studios
will be “borrowing” this format soon doesn't it? Four delayed
releases later and the film was FINALLY released on October 10, 2014
where it was ravaged by the critics and only earned 56 million
dollars versus its budget of 70 million. It did MUCH better overseas
because these kind of movies always do, bringing its total to 215
million and all but guaranteeing the Universal Cinematic Universe
will become a thing.
Let's see how the introductory chapter
unfolds, so grab your garlic and your wooden stakes- or wait, forget
that. I'm going to bet this vampire movie continues the Hollywood
fad of eliminating all vampire tropes. Let's just pray Dracula
doesn't sparkle as it's time for A Ghoul Versus Dracula Untold!
Narration (SIGH) informs us it's the
year 1442 and the sultan of Turkey has enslaved one thousand
Transylvanian boys to serve in his army. One of the boys grew up to
be super badass, and entire armies would flee at the sight of him.
He was, of course, Vlad the Impaler. As he grew up, he became weary
of the bloodshed and regretted his violent acts so he... left the
army to return to rule Transylvania? Well, I guess that sultan isn't
such a bad guy after all! Enslaving and torturing boys sure, but
he'll let you go if you feel bad enough.
Vlad is played by Luke Evans, a Welsh
actor who is fast becoming a very hot property in Hollywood. After
large parts in the CGIfests that were the Clash of the Titans
remake and Immortals, he landed choice parts in CGIfests like
Fast and Furious 6 and Peter Jackson's the Hobbit
trilogy. Progress! We join Vlad as he and his squad are near a
river, examining the helmet of a Turkish scout that was found nearby.
Worried of a potential invasion, Vlad plans to hike up to Broken
Tooth Mountain, where he suspects the Turks will be hiding. Somehow,
during all of this, Vlad fails to notice the three massive claw marks
on the back of the helmet.
The men scale the mountain and enter a
cave after enduring a bat jump scare, Vlad pointing out something
inside scared the bats. They find the floor is covered in crushed
bones and that's when something attacks and takes out everyone but
Vlad. He runs to the entrance of the cave, saved by the lighting
shining through which wards off the creature. Hey, sunlight hurts
vampires! I can't believe anyone remember that! Vlad returns to his
home, Castle Dracula, and meets with a monk named Brother Lucian to
find more about the mysterious being.
In this world a vampire is created when
someone summons a demon from Hell and makes a trade for power, but
usually gets screwed in the process. In this case, the vampire in
the cave is confined there until it can find someone to set it free.
Mulling this over, Vlad goes to visit his wife Mirena and his young
son Ingeras, giving him a reminder of what's important in his world.
Mirena is played by Sarah Gadon, an actress we'll be seeing a lot of
in the upcoming year as I plan to review her numerous collaborations
with both David Cronenberg and his son Richard. However, she's
probably best known to mainstream audiences as K.A.R.I., the
holographic AI that Oscorp Industries employed to direct traffic in the Not-At-All Amazing Spider-Man 2.
We see Vlad loves his family very much
and would do anything for them, but I'm POSITIVE selling his soul to
a vampire to protect them won't ever come into play. The next day is
Easter, where the citizens of Transylvania are celebrating ten years
of peace... which is cut short by the arrival of the Turks, led by
the sultan's right hand man Hamza Bey. Talk about timing, I bet
these assholes were probably waiting outside the door for the PERFECT
moment to enter. It seems the sultan wants a thousand boys again,
which does not go over well. Bey warns if Vlad does not go along
with this, things will go VERY poorly for his kingdom. Vlad decides
to go meet with the sultan to try to change his mind.
The sultan, Mehmed, is played by
Dominic Cooper, another up and coming actor thanks to roles in Mamma
Mia!, An Education, and Captain America. His next big
role is going to be in 2016 with Duncan "Source Code" Jones' World of Warcraft film, which is
really going to happen now. Mehmed laughs off Vlad's negotiations,
upping the asshole ante by saying he now also wants Ingeras to serve
under him. Later, Vlad brings his family out to a field to turn his
son over to the Turks, but turns the tables and begins to FUCK THEM
UP. Bey gets his arms cut off before getting his throat slit, and I
am now officially about this movie. One of Vlad's allies angrily
yells he's just declared war on the Turks and they don't have the
numbers to defend themselves. Vlad ignores him, gazing at Broken
Tooth Mountain thoughtfully...
The next scene is of him entering the
cave again, confronting the vampire within. The vampire appears
slightly more human this encounter, so we can see he's portrayed by
Charles Dance. Dance is a thirty plus year veteran of cinema,
amassing over one hundred roles in that time. Personally, I know him
best as the doctor from the controversial Alien 3, a film I
hope to get to sooner than later because it's always fascinated me.
Dance, credited as Master Vampire, talks with Vlad over his situation
in a scene that is the PERFECT amount of scene gnawing. This movie
is extremely cliché so far, but it's being done EXACTLY like it
should be, not too serious and not too dark.
Master Vampire bites open his wrist and
spills his blood into part of an empty skull, telling Vlad if he
drinks from it he'll gain all kinds of wondrous powers but at a cost:
he'll thirst for human blood. If he can resist this temptation for
three days he'll return to normal, but if he succumbs to the thirst
he'll forever be a creature of the dark that will destroy everything
he holds dear, including his wife and son. But wait, there's more!
Master Vampire will be freed from the cave to seek revenge on the one
who imprisoned him there, and he'll have the ability to use Vlad as a
pawn in the sequel- I mean, quest to find said jailer.
Vlad thinks he has a handle on this, so
is all “Bottoms up!” and chugs the blood. He promptly drops dead
but reawakens in the river to find his silver wedding ring is burning
his hand, as Master Vampire mentioned silver “offends” him. He
stumbles around, finding he is now basically Superman with the super
strength and enhanced senses. He starts to run like the Flash, but
quickly discovers he can transform into a colony of bats. This movie
fucking rules. He starts to fly back to his castle, which is
currently under assault from the Turks. He briefly goes inside to
make sure his family is okay, makes a motivational speech to his
people, then steps outside to show the Turks what the fuck is up.
One GLORIOUSLY violent (well, as
gloriously violent as PG-13 will allow) fight sequence later,
including a brilliant shot where we see the action transpire in the
reflection of a sword embedded in a man's chest, and Vlad is standing
alone in a field of hundreds of slaughtered soldiers. This scene was
so awesome I'm not even going to question why all the soldiers ganged
up to fight Vlad instead of sneaking by him to ransack the castle
while he was busy going full bat. I mean, at least fifty of them or
so could have casually strolled by the vampire, they did have an
objective after all.
Vlad's men walk out, baffled at what
they're seeing. He declares they are no longer safe at the castle
and must move to the Cozia Monastery, up high in the mountains of the
land. I guess, or you could just fly to Mehmed and end this in the
course of one night? Dead sultan equals no more problems for
Transylvania, right? Vlad reasons this will personally draw out
Mehmed so he can easily kill him, but YOU CAN TURN INTO BATS! It's
not like this makes getting to Mehmed an issue! Course, this would
make for a mighty short movie so it's onto the monastery. They make
camp in the night, Vlad already starting to fell the effects of his
thirst while trying to have sex with his wife.
He runs out into the woods before he
loses control and bites her, encountering a gypsy named Shkelgim who
admits he knows what Vlad has become. He cuts open his hand and
offers Vlad a cup of his own blood, asking to serve him. Shkelgim is
played by Zach McGowan, who is currently tearing it up as Captain
Vane on Starz's EXCELLENT pirate drama Black Sails.
McGowan almost looks like he's in his Vane costume here, so it's
highly likely one day he got lost on his way to film a Black Sails
scene and wandered onto the Dracula set. Vlad advises the
gypsy to stay far away from him and returns to Mirena. He fesses up
everything to her, promising her he'll resist the urge for the next
two days and become human again.
The Turks catch up to the
Transylvanians the next night and attack, but Vlad is able to hold
them off until everyone can make it safely behind the monastery's
walls. Things don't get much better as Lucian notices how Vlad is
avoiding the sunlight like the plague and outs him as a vampire. The
soldiers try to burn him alive, but this only succeeds in pissing him
off. He threatens to attack them until Mirena talks sense into him
by breaking out that old chestnut “this isn't who you are”. The
Transylvanians kind of just shrug their shoulders and decide to roll
with their new vampire overlord, fuck it, what else do they have to
lose?
Time throws a spanner into the works by
having dawn rise just as Mehmed's army arrives outside the monastery,
rendering Vlad powerless. Or so he thinks, until he gets the idea to
apparently summon every bat in the world to pummel the marching army.
It gets a tad...BAT-shit crazy as we get a scene where Vlad shapes
the bats into a gigantic fist to do a ground pound, which sends
everyone flying. I mean, the biggest bat in the world is barely
three pounds! I SUPPOSE a million of them working in tandem could-
you know what, let's just keep enjoying the movie.
Vlad flies down to the ground to thin
out the soldiers, which proves to be a costly mistake as Mirena and
Ingeras are left unprotected with two Turks advancing on them. The
Turks throw Mirena off a tower and take Ingeras to their sultan, Vlad
trying in vain to save his wife from falling to her death. With
Ingeras on the back of his horse, Mehmed calls for his army to
retreat. Oh, but Mirena is still alive?! Oh come on, she fell like
two hundred feet at least! Gwen Stacy fell like half that and didn't
even have the strength to pull of a “dying in her beloved's arms”
scene.
So... sigh... Mirena tells Vlad to
drink her blood so he'll have the time to stop the Turks, as the
three day limit is now up with the rising of the sun. Vlad refuses,
but she begs him and we have Dracula. Repeat, we have Dracula! This
is cut with shots of Master Vampire walking free from his cave and
into a career of appearing in Universal Monster movies of rapidly
varying quality. Vlad, after giving the Mandated by Law big
“NOOOOO!”, sets down his wife's body and enters the monastery.
He a small group of dying survivors, opening his wrists to them to
create his own vampire squad. It's about to get real Mehmed!
Way too real, as the newborn vampires
RAVAGE The Turkish camp and begin drinking blood like it's going out
of style. Vlad storms into Mehmed's tent to find Ingeras, finding
the Big Bad covered in silver armour and the floor coated with silver
coins. Of course Vlad just doesn't turn into bats and decapitate his
unhelmeted head, that would deny us of the final duel. Mehmed is
somehow able to hang despite Vlad having the strength to crush
boulders with his bare hands, maybe it's because the coins are
emitting... silver gas? I have no idea, Vlad is wearing a suit of
armour himself so just STEPPING on the coins shouldn't be affecting
him in the slightest.
The battle rages on, with Mehmed about
to drive a wooden stake through Vlad's heart when he decides this
would be the PERFECT chance for a Bond villain soliloquy. Vlad
suddenly remembers he can bat, so does this to reverse their
positions and stab Mehmed instead, declaring his name is now Dracula.
We aren't out of the woods just yet though, because Dracula's
Impromptu Legion of the Night has killed EVERYONE and now wants
Ingeras' blood. They surround the two, Brother Lucian suddenly
popping out of nowhere with a gold cross that keeps them at bay. He
asks Ingeras to come with him, Dracula reluctantly forced to let him
go as it's the only way to save him. After they're gone, Dracula
uses his powers to part the clouds over the camp and destroy all the
vampires with the power of the sun. And himself too in the Mandated
by Law heroic sacrifice.
This brings us full circle to our
narrator, who was Ingeras reflecting back on these events. We see
him crowned the new prince of Transylvania as he talks about how his
father was a hero to his people. He speaks of how if the heart is
strong enough, the soul will be reborn in life after life, age after
age. While this goes on, back at the Turkish camp Shkelgim finds
Dracula's remains and drips blood into his mouth, Dracula's eyes
opening. Things shift to the modern day, where a suit wearing
Dracula walks down the street and sees a woman that looks exactly
like Mirena picking out flowers from a shop, possibly because she's
played by the same actress. They chat, the woman introducing herself
as Mina after Dracula wows her by reciting part of her favourite
poem.
The camera pulls back to see Master
Vampire, now looking very human, watching this touching scene unfold.
He quips “let the games begin” as he begins to follow them,
echoing words he said to Vlad at the very beginning of the story.
Cue the credits.
Did you catch the ending there? Not
the obvious Mirena's soul being reborn into Mina bit, but the
significance of Mina's name? In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, Mina
Harker was the hero of the story and her actions ultimately led to
the defeat of Dracula, despite slowing turning into a vampire due to
his curse. I'm guessing in the inevitable sequel they'll have some
variation of this where Master Vampire bites her to force Dracula to
help him, or something to that effect.
What did I think of the introduction to
the next Cinematic Universe? If you couldn't tell, I rather liked
it! Yes, there's barely an original scene in the entire thing but it
was so refreshingly retro, it works in the film's favour. A real
fucking vampire that kills people and has the good ol' fashioned
weaknesses, when's the last time we saw something like this? I'm
sure a lot of people were put off by Dracula being turned into an
anti-hero because NO ONE can just be a regular villain anymore, but
it really worked in the context of the story unlike a film such as Maleficient.
One glaring flaw the film made was
Master Vampire warning Vlad he's ruin everything he held dear if he
tasted human blood and then not following up on that when it went
down. I wonder if the ending wasn't different before the film was
sent back to reshoots to pave the way for a shared universe, because
natural story progression should have led to that. This is
forgivable, because everything else here was so straightforward with
everything being crystal clear. Critics didn't agree with me and
gave this a dreadful 23% on Rotten Tomatoes, lambasting it for all of
the cliché elements and failure to distinguish itself in a grand
fashion. All valid points, but I'd still take this any day of the
week over the latest Spider-Man or any of the other countless
Godawful remakes/reboots I've reviewed on here. Fun goes a long way
folks, it can excuse A LOT.
Definite recommendation here, this
movie does nothing to reinvent the wheel but cruises along about as
smooth can be with a very good performance by Luke Evans. This is a
very enjoyable action movie filled with simple character motivations
and a concise script, making it quite the rarity in this day and age.
Expect to see these characters in 2016 with the next Universal
Monster movie, the Mummy. It's being written by Jon Spaihts,
who was the co-writer for... Prometheus. Oh, yay. Well, I'm sure they at least
got a good director to make sure their budding franchise doesn't go
belly up only two movies in, right? ALEX KURTZMAN?! DUN DUN
DUUUUUUN!
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