I wasn’t too surprised when this movie turned out to be bad, and no one else should be either…
What Works: Ummm…well…uhhh…[crickets chirping]…Game of Thrones’ Charles Dance is always worth watching and he’s more menacing than ever as a very old vampire…
What Doesn’t Work: So many things. For one, they tease out that Dance’s vampire has a unique and compelling backstory—that we never actually hear. Also, his character may be murky as the shadows he lives in but no other character is remotely specific nor half as much fun. This is one of those cheaply made “epic” films that is made to dominate the box office for a weekend and then disappear to the foreign box office and rack up money in Eastern Europe.
I’ve begun to hate films that feature a worn-out character in a “new” light, and that’s too bad for me since that’s roughly half of what Hollywood makes these days, and audiences have become willing conspirators in the plot to basically watch the same movie over and over again. There’s not one truly good scene in Dracula Untold but Cinemascore audiences gave it an “A-” …even if I doubt they can remember any of it a week from now.
What I Would Have Done Differently: The financiers and distributors will make money off this thing, so get ready for “Tooth Fairy: Vampire Killer” or “Easter Bunny: Werewolf Slayer.”