Starring: Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Charles Dance, Zach McGowan
Plot: The untold story of how Vlad III became Vlad the Impaler, who then became Vlad the prince, who then became Vlad the father, who then became Dracula, which means son of the devil
Review: So for my first review on the new site (looking sharp by the way) I decided to watch Dracula Untold because I was feeling nostalgic for this Dark Universe that was supposed to happen with this, Tom Cruise in The Mummy, with smatterings of Russell Crowe as Jekyll & Hyde, and I wanna say Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man, so there was a a lot of potential to have a lot of fun with these movies, but that has since fallen through and nothing may be happening for it, which is unfortunate because that means I watched this movie for nothing.
I’d like to start by saying I like Dracula and most Dracula movies, but this isn’t a Dracula movie. This is a weird romance/war/fantasy movie that has a guy turning into Dracula and being very annoying while doing it. Luke Evans (The Hobbit) as the titular character kind of steered me in the wrong direction because I don’t particularly like him as an actor and couldn’t find him convincing as super dope and suave Dracula, but he wasn’t Dracula, so it doesn’t really matter. Charles Dance (he plays Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones) plays the vampire who turns Vlad into Dracula should be playing the real Dracula, this guy oozes suave. but for some reason they put him in a cave and made him all stupid looking.
The movie moves forward in an exceptionally linear form and has very few, if any turns. Sultan Mehmed II, played by Dominic Cooper (Preacher) is technically the villain, but about halfway through the movie Vlad wants to turn into a Vampire so he can become a monster to save his people, because people don't always need a hero, sometimes they need a monster to keep them in line. So the movie pits a villain against a villain with another villain being a puppet master. Not convoluted or stupid at all, really.
But I did learn some things about Vampires that I didn’t know before, which was kinda cool. I learned that Vampires have super hearing, to the point of he can hear a spider wrapping its web around a fly and that Vampires, maybe just Dracula specifically, somehow can control the weather and makes lightning appear when he’s angry. I’ve been reading fantasy for years and didn’t know that about vampires, so I’m all the better for it.
Oh! I also learned that vampires become vampires not by having their blood drank, but by drinking the blood of a vampire instead! Dracula became Dracula by drinking the blood of the other vampire, way cooler than the other way. I also found out that if he feeds within 3 days he’ll become a vampire, but if he doesn’t he becomes mortal again. But, if I’m watching this movie right, it’s feeding of any type, not just on flesh. He gets very uncomfortable around his people eating completely cooked meat, but can go into his tent and get a good 30 of his 45 second bone time with his wife before he realizes that he wants to suck her blood.
I don't mean to bash this movie, but it’s really dumb and a stupid premise. No one cares how Dracula because Dracula, they wanna see him fuck people up and then get a stake through the heart, amitirite?!
The best scene in the movie comes just before the end, there’s a big battle between the Vlads and the Sultans on top of a cliff that’s like… well, they say out of range for a cannon, so conservatively 250 feet? Napoleans cannons were in and around 1450 metres, but that’s a couple hundred years after, so I’ll just go easy and say 250 feet. So Dracula is flying around as a swarm of bats and realizes that the other bad guys are in his castle on top of this 250 foot cliff, trying to throw his wife off. He flies up there in time to kill the guys trying to kill his wife, but then she falls to her death. Falls 250 feet and DOESN’T HAVE A SCRATCH ON HER, but is definitely lying from internal bleeding, but ALSO has time to tell Dracula to drink her blood so he can become a vampire to save his son, who has been stolen by the Sultan. He doesn’t want to, but she says he needs to do it before she dies so he can save their son, so he does. She doesn’t die from the 250 foot fall, nor the I’m clearly dying monologue, but from him sucking her blood. He then goes and kills the Sultan in a pretty lacklustre fashion, but says as the Sultan is dying “My name isn’t Vlad anymore, it’s Dracula, which means son of the Devil”. His name was always Dracul, so he added an A to it, and Dracul only loosely translates to son of the Devil, but is more known as meaning son of the Dragon, but that’s not the worst thing about this movie.
It was supposed to be in the Dark Universe as I said, so it fast forwards approximately 500 years (doesn’t say, but looks today-ish) and Dracula is walking around, finds his reincarnated wife and spouts a line from a poem to her, one we hadn’t heard them speak of the entire movie, but he knows it’s her favourite because it speaks of a yearning of two souls across time.
I fact checked this movie, it takes place in 1442, Vlad the impaler would have been 13-17 years old, and his first reign started in 1448. He also technically died in 1442 as this movie shows, but doesn’t die in real life until 1476-1477 or so. I understand that it’s a fantasy movie, but get some number right. Looks sloppy and dumb.
Don’t waste your time like I did, and if you had already wasted your time, I am sorry.
