Dracula Untold (2014)
As his kingdom is being threatened by the Turks,
young prince Vlad Tepes must become a monster feared by his own people
in order to obtain the power needed to protect his own family, and the
families of his kingdom.
Director:
Gary ShoreStars:
At the turn of the century, the young lord Vlad and his family live a
peaceful life ruling over their small kingdom, but when a Turk warlord
demands from Vlad a thousand boys and his son to create an army Vlad
seeks a terrible power that will allow him to protect his kingdom and
family from the Turks at a terrible cost.
Release Date:
15 October 2014 (Philippines) See more »Also Known As:
Drakula Neispričani See more »Box Office
Budget:
$70.000.000 (estimated)Opening Weekend:
$23.514.615 (USA) (10 October 2014)Gross:
$56.280.355 (USA)
See more »
Company Credits
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Color:
ColorAspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1Did You Know?
Trivia
The lines that Vlad quotes at the end ("Why think separately of this life and the next when one is born from the last?") are from the poem Look at Love by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, a 13th century holy man and mystic.Goofs
While in history Mehmed first defeated Vlad (Vlad Tepes) in 1462 and
Vlad fled to Hungary and prisioned until he released in 1474.
In 1476 he attacked to Ottomans and defeated again but this time Vlad's
head was brought to Mehmed as a proof. Mehmed died 5 years after he
defeated Vlad III for the second time. After he defeated Vlad III he put
Radu in that position and the region was still a part of the Ottoman
Empire till 19. Century.
This is a fictional movie that is based on the fictional writing Bram Stoker.
This is a fictional movie that is based on the fictional writing Bram Stoker.
First, some good news: "Dracula Untold," a sort of "Batman Begins"
prequel, isn't as tacky as it sounds. There are glimmers of a brooding
and icky horror epic scattered throughout the film, particularly in its
surprisingly romantic, matte-painting-esque backdrops and
impressionistic vampire's-point-of-view shots. But that leads me to the
bad news: if you step away from "Dracula Untold" long enough to describe
it, you'll realize how soul-crushingly unimaginative it is. This is,
after all, a "Maleficent"-style
anti-fable that relies on your instant recognition of Dracula while
trying to rehabilitate and recast Bram Stoker's bloodsucker as a Byronic
hero. Still, the good news barely outweighs the bad in "Dracula
Untold," a lightweight war-adventure that is ultimately stranger and
more enticing when it remembers it's also a horror film.
In the beginning, a boring narrator natters on about how Vlad "Dracula" Tepes (Luke Evans)
was a former Transylvanian child soldier who was abducted by Turks,
trained to fight, blah blah blah...he's a killing machine. Then, we
actually meet the guy: a soldier kneeling in prayer before a forest of
pikes bearing his impaled foes. It's a creepy image, and one that should
be held for at least twice as long as it is. Unfortunately, the makers
of "Dracula Untold" typically hit the fast-forward button, and rush to
the next chain of events. Vlad is given an ultimatum from Turkish Sultan
Mehmed (Dominic Cooper) while feasting with angelic wife Mirena (Sarah Gadon),
she of the blue eyes, and generous cleavage: give Mehmed 1000
Transylvanian child soldiers, or take on Mehmed's overwhelming forces.
Herein
enters the homo-eroticism that the film sometimes cannot suppress: Vlad
and Mehmed are childhood rivals, trained together in the army of
Mehmed's father. But Mehmed's threat is a visceral reminder of events
that are only alluded to in the aforementioned voiceover-reliant
introduction. Vlad strikes a deal with a vampire (Charles Dance)
that offers him an alternative deal: stay human and die, or temporarily
become a vampire and destroy Mehmed's army. This would be a simple
choice were it not for a ridiculous convolution: if Vlad drinks human
blood, he will permanently become a vampire, and wind up sucking
forever. Yes, that was a pun, and no, you don't get an apology.
Nor
should you expect one in a review of "Dracula Untold," a bizarrely
ambitious popcorn cash-in that's also half-baked in all the expected
ways. The film's battle scenes are over-edited, Cooper's villain is a
snooze, and there's simply not enough sex and death in an origin story
about the archetypal sexual predator. Instead, there's a predictable
attempted-rape scene, and a lot of paradoxically plodding hints that
Mehmed and the Turks weren't that into women. There are also several
scenes where Dracula turns into a cloud of bats, and even one scene
where he scales a black cliff bare-handed while wearing a red cape, as
if he were Wagner's Siegfried.
If you can selectively ignore this litany of inanity, you may find
some substantial earthy pleasures in "Dracula Untold." Despite its PG-13
rating, the film does periodically erupt into surprisingly gruesome
violence, like when a vampire is gored, then reduced into an emaciated
corpse. And cinematographer John Schwartzman ("The Rock," "Armageddon") reminds you why Michael Bay
used to love working with him in every day-for-night landscape shot.
Evans is surprisingly good at smoldering, and special-effects-reliant
shots of Vlad turning into a monster are usually pretty enticing. These
small, moody charms add up, and give a film that sounds so very dumb
some much-needed atmosphere. There's not much more to "Dracula Untold,"
but it does periodically throb with surface-deep tension.
Final rating: 7/10 for the genre and 7/10 overall, a solid vampire movie, with some really scary but also sexy moments and a lot of bits.
Thanks for reading and have fun watching movies.
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