The United States Civil War was quite the ordeal what with pitting brother against brother and man against … vampire? Oh, I hate revisionist history.
Based on one of the great tongue-in-cheek gags of our age, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter promotes exactly that – our nation’s greatest President spent his twenties and thirties secretly locating and disposing of blood-sucking demons. Ironic this man turned out Republican, no? And who’s to say Abe Lincoln really wasn’t a vampire hunter? How would you know? Hey, did you know that Napoleon Bonaparte was a werewolf? You can’t prove he wasn’t; history is unclear on the subject. Cleopatra? Siamese twins. Prove me wrong.
We’ve had so many good portrayals of historical figures lately that I’d honestly forgotten what a bad one looked like. “Huh, that doesn’t really seem very Lincoln-ish to me. Meh, it’s probably the writing.” (minutes later) “Wait a minute! I know what this is! This is bad! This is actual honest-to-Abeness bad acting!” Benjamin Walker in no way resembles Abraham Lincoln. That’s OK; it’s not like the screenplay made a serious attempt to find (Dis)Honest Abe. Stephen Douglas (Alan Tudyk) and Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) didn’t exactly remind me of their real counterparts, either. At that rate, I half expected Jack Black to show as Ulysses S. Grant. Oh, and don’t get me started on actual historical inaccuracy vs. deliberately embellished inaccuracy. The whole point to the joke is you get everything WE KNOW right and have fun wit
h the stuff we don’t.
Strangely enough, the story only doesn’t work within the aura of Lincoln. If this has just been a tale of a rural man and his life fighting vampires, I might have liked it more. The fact that it’s Abraham Lincoln gets silly, because, let’s face it – arguably the most scrutinized figure in the Western Hemisphere of the 19th century did not have the ability to fight vampires while running for or serving in office. That’s more impossible than the existence of vampires. I can travel the road where young Abe studies the law during the day and fights evil at night. Past that, well, good luck. “Excuse me, Secretary of State Seward, War Department, White House attendants, I have to step out … with my ax … and do some walking in the dark by myself. No, no, don’t wait up.”
It’s not quite like that in the movie, but the climax ain’t far off. Director Timur Bekmambetov has Pirates of the Caribbean sequels disease – the plot is simply an excuse to the next visual. He has a tremendous feel for what a picture or scene ought to look like, but sorely lacks in the storytelling and character development parts of the presentation. But there are worse vampire tales. I’ve seen many.
Rail splittin’ fool/you know the story?
A hidden dimension/due South of gory
History winces/offense to heaven
Minutes of painful?/Four score and seven.
Rated R, 105 Minutes
D: Timur Bekmambetov
W: Seth Grahame-Smith
Genre: Historical embellishment
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of the image of our 16th President
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Redneck vampires
