3.5 stars. Rating: R, for considerable horror violence, brief sensuality and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang
The only thing more audaciously
lunatic than this film’s skirmish atop — yes, atop — a panicked herd of horses, is the climactic battle royale aboard
a speeding train.
Say what you will about this
storyline’s cheeky absurdity; director Timur Bekmambetov has style to burn.
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| Having beheaded and otherwise dispatched most of the vampire minions in his undead host's New Orleans mansion, Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) suddenly must face the far more deadly Vadoma (Erin Watson). |
Actually, Bekmambetov has built
his entire career on visual pizzazz; the trouble — until now — is that the
scripts for his various projects have been seriously flawed. The Russian-born
director came to our attention with his bizarre, often incomprehensible vampire
franchise, Night Watch and Day Watch. Both films were massively popular in
his native country; on our shores, however, they felt quaintly retro.
But they looked fabulous and boasted plenty of creative touches, even when
it was difficult to follow the seemingly random, fever-dream narratives.
Hollywood took note, and
Bekmambetov made his American film debut with 2008’s similarly flamboyant
adaptation of Wanted, based on the Mark Millar/J.G. Jones comic book series.
Again, though, the frenetic editing, sleek cinematography and loopy action
scenes overwhelmed the ill-defined characters and insufferably haphazard
script.
Happily, things are much better
with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Seth Grahame-Smith’s screenplay,
adapted from his own impudent novel, establishes solid characters and progresses
through a clever re-boot of 19th century American history.
This saga belongs to the new
literary sub-genre that Grahame-Smith founded with his first parody novel,
2009’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (due to hit the big screen next year).
Although Jane Austen undoubtedly rolled over in her grave — and let’s hope she
stayed there! — Grahame-Smith definitely tapped a fresh vein in the zeitgeist;
if TV shows like Glee can mash up new pop songs with old classics, why not do
the same with written genres?
More to the point, if Quentin
Tarantino can employ his own gonzo talents to re-write history so that a squad
of Jewish U.S. soldiers successfully assassinates Adolf Hitler, in 2009’s Inglourious Basterds — while also scoring an Academy Award for co-star
Christoph Waltz — then surely Bekmambetov and Grahame-Smith can achieve the
same results by giving “Honest Abe” something other than wood to chop, with his
trusty axe.
And, frankly, Grahame-Smith’s
narrative is rather clever. Once we accept the notion that 19th century
vampires infiltrated the United States, with the hopes of helping the South
preserve slavery — in order to maintain a readily available food supply — then
everything else falls into place quite neatly. Grahame-Smith borrows just
enough authentic history to help certain plot points look and sound familiar;
beyond that, we simply hang on for dear life.
