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Dracula Untold

(2014)

(SPOILERS) It isn’t as if Dracula origins stories are anything new, or making him sympathetic come to that. Coppola went there in the prologue to his half-interesting, half-cocked Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992. Now, though, with franchise heaven and hell beckoning rich rewards to those who get it right, here’s a full-blown hero yarn, in which Dracula/Vlad the Impaler is a righteous, noble and well intentioned if not-quite-good guy, not dead and loving it until towards the end. Dracula Untold is a sloppy mess, suggesting Universal’s rebirthing of its classic monsters will run aground in much the same way hopes of Van Helsing kicking off a new round of Universal monster movies floundered more than a decade ago.

Universal isn’t alone in trying to get on a bandwagon of classic properties/characters only Disney/Marvel seem to have wholly mastered. Certainly, Warner Bros is floundering with DC, and Paramount got stuck with Star Trek, and Sony had to call in those who knew how with Spider-Man. It doesn’t look like a good sign that those who helped run Trek aground (Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci) are signed up to unleash the new Universal classic monsters powerhouse. The Mummy (last seen 2008), Van Helsing (2004) and The Wolf Man (botched in 2010) are in the offing. Kurtzam was attached as The Mummy as director last time anyone checked. Whether Universal rethinks this in the light of Orci being dumped of Star Trek III is as yet unclear, but Kurtzman does at least have one feature credit to his name. Which is one more than Orci.

Dracula Untold happened before all this planning, but its ending fastidiously ticks off the sequel options. It’s doubtful anyone will be pursuing them as no one much cared for the result (although it was medium budget, so anything’s possible; Luke Evans’ stock as a leading man is likely limited, however). Commercials director and first timer Gary Shore does no better or worse a job than others churning out similarly identikit dour colour-washed fantasies but (say) Robert Stromberg made a lot of money for Disney with Maleficent.

The main culprits here are script writing duo Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (his real name), who have somehow lined up further dubious fantasies with Vin Diesel (The Last Witch Hunter) and Alex Proyas (Gods of Egypt; Proyas was originally attached to Dracula Untold when it was Dracula Year Zero and Sam Worthington was going to star – yes, it could have been worse). On this evidence, they’re story-fashioning skills are basic at best. They redefine Vlad as the victim, characterised through a wimpy voiceover from his son (Art Parkinson, alias Rickon Stark; not the last Game of Thrones alumni pilfered here). Villainous Turks take Dracula as hostage as a wee lad, raising him as their own. Under their instruction, he commits unspeakable acts (hence the impaling epithet) but wished he hadn’t and absolutely doesn’t want his own son to be carted off in turn.

To this end Vlad comes up with scheme that is, by any standards, hopeless. The Turks, led by Dominic Cooper, surprisingly, and various other actors who don’t seem remotely Turkish (most notably Thor Kristanjsson) intend to wreak bloody destruction across fair Transylvania, so Vlad fetches himself off to Broken Tooth Mountain where he drinks the blood of vampire Charles Dance (Game of Thrones; Paul Kaye also pops up). Dance is great, and lends a bit of conviction to otherwise puerile writing. Vlad must resist blood for three days or he’ll go full vamp, and of course we know it won’t end well.

Sure, Vlad’s desperate, but he clearly hasn’t thought this out. For a start, he can’t do much in the way of Turk toppling during the daylight hours so his fighting style is seriously cramped (the rules here seem very flexible, since he’s getting burned through an open tent one moment and the next he’s standing outside in daylight, but that’s the least of the problems). Oh, except at the end, when he controls the weather and makes it really cloudy. Couldn’t he have done that before, rather than wasting entire days? More than that, we see him wipe out an entire army when he first gets vamped up, but then he goes on the run with his people. Shouldn’t he be taking the fight to them? It’s no use moaning about his time almost being up if he’s failed to take advantage of it.

Frankly, all the losses that befall his people, and his dear missus (Sarah Gaddon), are his fault. He only has himself to blame. Oh, that must be why he’s such a tragic figure. Evans is okay, but doesn’t have much to work with. Nor does Cooper, who is reduced to throwing silver coins at his foe in a tepid attempt to defeat him. After Vlad turning into a swarm of bats and generally acting like an ultra-moody version of Neo/Man of Steel, it’s a stretch that such an obstacle would even momentarily unstick him.

The full-vamp effects aren’t especially dazzling, although the vampire “predator-vision” is okay and there are worthy vampire destruction moments towards the end. Vlad manages not to get killed in daylight again here, unlike his not-so-comrades (he’s a different kind of vampire altogether; he’s got soul). Dracula Untold managed to get a PG-13 in the US despite someone’s arms being chopped off, which is nice. I expect the MPAA decided it was fine, as the was only Turkish.

Sazama and Sharpless’ tin ear for dialogue will be fun to hear coming from Vin Diesel in a few months time, and lines like “My fellow Transylvanians” and “Let the games begin” (coming from Dance), and subtitles helpfully informing us “Castle Dracula” suggest they have an uncommonly terrible touch. As for the ending, with Dracula wandering modern New York like Connor MacLeod in need of sunblock (with both Gaddon as Mina Harker and Dance resurfacing), they clearly had in mind a series with an all-heroic Dracula battling really bad dudes, so it will be all for the best if has been stopped in its tracks.

Ziggy smokes a lot of weed.

Moonfall (2022) (SPOILERS) For a while there, it looked as if Moonfall , the latest and least-welcomed – so it seems – piece of apocalyptic programming from Roland Emmerich, might be sending mixed messages. Fortunately, we need not have feared, as it turns out to be the same pedigree of disaster porn we’ve come to expect from the director, one of the Elite’s most dutiful mass-entertainment stooges, even if his lustre has rather dimmed since the glory days of 2012.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

All I saw was an old man with a funky hand, that’s all I saw.

The Blob (1988) (SPOILERS) The 1980s effects-laden remake of a ’50s B-movie that couldn’t. That is, couldn’t persuade an audience to see it and couldn’t muster critical acclaim. The Fly was a hit. The Thing wasn’t, but its reputation has since soared. Like Invaders from Mars , no such fate awaited The Blob , despite effects that, in many respects, are comparable in quality to the John Carpenter classic – and are certainly indebted to Rob Bottin for bodily grue – and surehanded direction from Chuck Russell. I suspect the reason is simply this: it lacks that extra layer that would ensure longevity.

Are you telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch doctor?

The Exorcist (1973) (SPOILERS) Vast swathes have been written on The Exorcist , duly reflective of its cultural impact. In a significant respect, it’s the first blockbuster – forget Jaws – and also the first of a new kind of special-effects movie. It provoked controversy across all levels of the socio-political spectrum, for explicit content and religious content, both hailed and denounced for the same. William Friedkin, director of William Peter Blatty’s screenplay based on Blatty’s 1971 novel, would have us believe The Exorcist is “ a film about the mystery of faith ”, but it’s evidently much more – and less – than that. There’s a strong argument to be made that movies having the kind of seismic shock on the landscape this one did aren’t simply designed to provoke rumination (or exultation); they’re there to profoundly influence society, even if largely by osmosis, and when one looks at this picture’s architects, such an assessment only gains in credibility.

I work for the guys that pay me to watch the guys that pay you. And then there are, I imagine, some guys that are paid to watch me.

The Day of the Dolphin (1973) (SPOILERS) Perhaps the most bizarre thing out of all the bizarre things about The Day of the Dolphin is that one of its posters scrupulously sets out its entire dastardly plot, something the movie itself doesn’t outline until fifteen minutes before the end. Mike Nichols reputedly made this – formerly earmarked for Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson and Sharon Tate, although I’m dubious a specific link can be construed between its conspiracy content and the Manson murders - to fulfil a contract with The Graduate producer Joseph Levine. It would explain the, for him, atypical science-fiction element, something he seems as comfortable with as having a hairy Jack leaping about the place in Wolf .

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Part I (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

That, my lad, was a dragon.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) (SPOILERS) It’s alarming how quickly Peter Jackson sabotaged all the goodwill he amassed in the wake of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A guy who started out directing deliciously deranged homemade horror movies ended up taking home the Oscar for a fantasy movie, of all genres. And then he blew it. He went from a filmmaker whose naysayers were the exception to one whose remaining cheerleaders are considered slightly maladjusted. The Desolation of Smaug recovers some of the territory Jackson has lost over the last decade, but he may be too far-gone to ever regain his crown. Perhaps in years to come The Lord of the Rings trilogy will be seen as an aberration in his filmography. There’s a cartoonishness to the gleeful, twisted anarchy on display in his earlierr work that may be more attuned to the less verimilitudinous aspects of King Kong and The Hobbit s. The exceptions are his female-centric character dramas, Heavenly Creat

Gizmo caca!

Gremlins (1984) I didn’t get to see Gremlins at the cinema. I wanted to, as I had worked myself into a state of great anticipation. There was a six-month gap between its (unseasonal) US release and arrival in the UK, so I had plenty of time to devour clips of cute Gizmo on Film ’84 (the only reason ever to catch Barry Norman was a tantalising glimpse of a much awaited movie, rather than his drab, colourless, reviews) and Gremlins trading cards that came with bubble gum attached (or was it the other way round?). But Gremlins ’ immediate fate for many an eager youngster in Britain was sealed when, after much deliberation, the BBFC granted it a 15 certificate. I had just turned 12, and at that time an attempt to sneak in to see it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind. I’d just have to wait for the video. I didn’t realise it then (because I didn’t know who he was as a filmmaker), but Joe Dante’s irrepressible anarchic wit would have a far stronger effect on me than the un

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