Advertisement

Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER (Timur Bekmambetov). 105 minutes. Opens Friday (June 22). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNN


Is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter a great bad movie or a bad great movie?

By the time a vampire picks up a horse and throws it at the future president, the question is irrelevant. It’s its own wild-ass thing, a spectacular mutant beast the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

In case you missed my point, let me reiterate it: this is a movie where a vampire picks up a fucking horse and throws it at Abraham Lincoln, who not only somehow survives the impact but winds up riding the thing through a stampede. And that’s just the first beat of one of two incredible action set pieces in which director Timur Bekmambetov – who gave us the Night Watch movies and Wanted – mashes the conceptual gas pedal to the floor and simply dazzles us with the kinetic imagery he’s pulling out of his pulsing brain.

The bones of the movie are ridiculous, a stiff, clumsy retelling of salient points in the real Lincoln’s career reflected through screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith’s gonzo notion that Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) balanced his storied life as a shop clerk, lawyer and politician with nightly acts of vampire slaying, coached by one of the good bloodsuckers (Dominic Cooper).

As the Great Impaler, Walker gives a performance that could best be described as animatronic. He’s good at the physical stuff, but so trapped under makeup that he might as well be a rejected mannequin from Disneyland’s Hall of Presidents.

But you’re not going to this for the acting. You’re going for a movie where Lincoln kills a whole bunch of vampires – who secretly control the Southern states, which was the real reason for the Civil War. You want a movie that’s as batshit crazy as the title promises.

And you get one.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted