Dracula Untold
Opens Friday at Scotiabank
The Hungarians have a saying that they鈥檙e fond of directing at children who have pleased them, which translates as 鈥淚鈥檇 like to eat your heart.鈥�
A fitting endearment, perhaps, for the descendants of Vlad III, Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler. The 15th-century ruler was known to invite people over to his mansion for dinner, impale them in their seats, and dip chunks of bread in their blood. He once skewered 20,000 Turks outside his city鈥檚 walls and left them there, stuck upright, as a warning to his enemies.
But despite burning and boiling his own people alive, Vlad III is revered in modern-day Romania as a man who protected Christendom from the Muslim Turks right across the border. There are statues in his honour.
This is the Dracula introduced in Dracula Untold. After a quick intro about those evil Turks and how Vlad was among 1,000 boys conscripted into their notoriously bloody army, adult Vlad (The Hobbit鈥檚 Luke Evans) is back in his people鈥檚 fold, a peaceful prince, doting dad and loving husband.
In this way Dracula Untold is a kind of Maleficent tale, whereby we are meant to forgive the villain/ess their sins because people were really, really mean to him/her as a child.
But when Vlad鈥檚 boyhood companion, the new sultan (Dominic Cooper, an odd casting choice) comes calling for a thousand more boys, including Vlad鈥檚 own son, that long-buried impaler instinct in him comes out. Dracula means 鈥渟on of the dragon,鈥� after all.
Conveniently, Vlad and his men have recently encountered a rotting monster of a man living in a cave (Charles Dance) who promises to give Vlad a trial run of superhuman powers, if only Vlad will drink his blood (aha!). If he can resist drinking again after three days, he鈥檒l return to his normal self. If not, then 鈥淚 vant to suck your blood鈥� will be a catchphrase.
But there is blood everywhere to tempt Vlad, and his wife Mirena鈥檚 (Sarah Gadon) skin is oh-so creamy-white鈥�
One battle scene after another follows. Slow-motion carnage and bat morphing take centre stage and the effects are kind of cool the first three or four times you see them. Then even the batnado becomes tiresome. The film starts to feel like one overlong special effect.
The Game of Thrones vibe is palpable, and not just because Vlad鈥檚 son (Art Parkinson) is an actor on the show. There are jagged mountains to climb, royal feuds to fight, sword-swinging aplenty. Director Gary Shore is going for the same kind of gritty mysticism offered by the HBO series, not aiming for the scares of Bram Stoker鈥檚 prose, so there are no Tom Cruise in ruffles nor well-dressed Cullens here.
But nothing much happens in the 84 minutes of Dracula, and the dialogue is as woefully wooden as all those vampire stakes lying around. Shame, because Evans is just the man to play Prince Vlad in all his brooding, bloody, maniacal complexity. Too bad the script had none of these qualities to offer.聽
