Movie Review: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

I'm jumping over a couple of other movie reviews and going straight to this one, since it was the last thing I saw.  And it was fun.  And I feel like posting this one.  Like that.  Call me silly, call me patriotic.  Or something patriotic-like.

Ok, back to my homework.


Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (2012)



Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, discovers vampires are planning to take over the United States. He makes it his mission to eliminate them.  Short synopsis of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter taken from IMDb.com

Not too long ago, I wrote that this past summer's Battleship was somewhat tedious, overly convenient, relied too heavily on explosions and not enough on genuine plot, and that it was - despite some mind-numbed entertainment factors - pretty much a waste of time. And now I sit, trying to review Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (also of this last summer). Many could say that this movie was just as bad, if not in some ways worse, than Battleship.

I wouldn't count myself in that group.

Not to say that "Abe Lincoln, Vamp Slasher" was good fare (and just to be clear, they could have gone with that title and lost only a minuscule of respect, I'd wager). Like Battleship, this movie had some real issues too. The problem for me is, though I can point to a few things that were really "oh please" moments, I kinda liked this little 20th Century Fox revisionist history effort.

Ah, 20th Century Fox. Your other summer movie that comes to mind is Prometheus, which is also a rather controversial flick. I happened to like Prometheus, because I was willing to look past some of its more obvious foibles to the much wished for Alien prequel that I so wanted it to be.

One of the more ridiculous parts of the film was the super-human strength that Lincoln experiences when he begins to become a vampire hunter.  Chops the tree down with one good swipe, he does.  Well, he warmed it up with a half dozen hits previously.  But still.  And we don't even bother to do a Daniel-san montage either.  At least his mentor could have got him built up to it.  "Wax on, wax off!" / Source: FilmDrunk.Uproxx.com

And you could say something similar for Abe Lincoln, Vamp Hunter. No, it doesn't fulfill a thirty-three year old wish for a "what happened before" answer (speaking of Ridley Scott's Alien again). No, this one satisfies the silly-action-hero-in-historical-garb wish.

Let me give you the skinny. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter isn't exactly like the book, so a quick run-down will be in order. Oh, and I didn't do a "Dual Review" of this movie and the book it is based upon because I don't have time or much inclination to read the thing anytime soon.

Link to the Wikipedia article for Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (book), in case you want to see the differences.  Since I'm not doing a Dual Review, ya know?

Ok, on with the synopsis. Abraham Lincoln as a boy is a good little abolitionist, and soon his actions run his family afoul of the local business man who employs his father. This business man just happens to be a vampire. Said vampire bites Abe's mom in the night and she dies from it next day. Lincoln witnesses all this, and will spend the rest of his life hating the undead and seeking revenge.

As a young man, Lincoln tries to exact his revenge on the vampire who killed his mom, and is almost killed himself for his trouble. He is rescued by a vampire hunter named Henry Sturgis, who takes Abe under his wing. The soon to be discovered truth is that Sturgis is actually a vampire too, and so he can't get revenge for the death of his sweetheart. God's joke on vampires, the head vampire says, is that only the living can kill the dead... conveniently enough.

Lincoln goes about by day becoming a statesman, and by night he is killing vampires. And in between he is courting Mary Todd. But he supposed to stay unattached, or else the vampires will take advantage of his weakness and hurt those he loves. This will come back - in the form of the big boss vampire's consort - to bite Lincoln's little boy, some years later.

Famous vampire hunters from history.  Going left to right and starting at the top, we have Westley Snipes as Blade, Benjamin Walker as Abraham Lincoln, Buffy Summers and Kendra Young (played by Sarah Michelle Geller and Bianca Lawson; I was never a fan of that series, sorry), another Abe - this time Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson; from the Blade movies), Anthony Hopkin's version of another Abraham - this time it's Van Helsing, and Anita Blake and some characters from the the Laurell K. Hamilton book series (I know nothing about these guys).  Not featured are any of the Belmonts from the Castlevania video game series, who are my favorite blood sucker killers. / Source: Zap2It.com

Anyway, eventually the vampires, who live mostly in the South and eat the black slaves for food, decide to start a war so they can take over the United States and make a nation of human slaves - black and white. Lincoln has become president; his day job turned out better than his night job, apparently. The vampires fight for the Confederacy, and the Union is having a tough time of it. So Lincoln decides that he should arm the Union troops with silver bullets, shells, bayonets, etc... And he sends a trainload of these weapons to Gettysburg, where the war is at a critical juncture.

Predictably, the vampires attack the train. Lincoln, his best black buddy William Johnson, other best buddy (this one white) Joshua Speed, and mentor Sturgis are there to fight them. But Speed has betrayed them. But Lincoln knew he would, and the train has no silver on it. Just boxes of rocks. Speed pays for his deception with his life, but not before almost all the vampires are killed. Even the big bad 5,000 year old boss vamp soon gets it, in a dramatic train crashing off a burning rail trestle scene. Good times.

Meanwhile, Mary Todd Lincoln has brought the silver arms to the battlefield via the Underground Railroad. Here she encounters the head vampire's female consort mentioned before, and shoots a crucifix (dropped down the barrel of a rifle) into the bad gal's head. Yea Mary Todd Lincoln! Get that revenge on your little boy's murderer!

In my opinion, this sequence was the poorest of the film, followed closely by the whole burning train trestle bit.  Lincoln chases the vampire who killed his mom over, on top of, under and around a heard of stampeding CGI horses. There is some really idiotic stuff going on in this part of the film. / Source: Hollywood.com

The battle of Gettysburg goes well for the North. Cue the Gettysburg address, and then everything turns out A-OK. Except that whole part about how Lincoln got shot in the back of the head at Ford's Theater and all that. But we skip over those details. The movie ends happily.

So is the film any good? Well, yes and no. There is a lot of gore in this thing, and a lot of action associated with the gore. To be honest, though I would not recommend this film for kids nor the easily impressionable, I didn't mind the gore too much because it was so over the top. It was so gratuitous that it was silly, and not much of it was prolonged and painful gory. But Abe is quite adept with his axe, and we see lots of blood flying and such. Plus the human victims of vampire attacks get a gruesome end too. Not just tiny little hickies. It was dumb action movie violence, and never strayed into being too human. The plot had aspirations to humanity, but the action is pure comic book fare.

The bad side? The movie is hopelessly silly. As noted, it is heavily weighted on action. And I'd venture a guess that Lincoln would spin in his grave if he saw how Hollywood has exploited his name. The synopsis of the book source material (on Wikipedia) makes it fairly clear that the film strays from simply nonsensical (the book) into absolutely obnoxious (this film). Seems the filmmakers decided to boost up the action and dumb down much of the rest.

But like I said, I kinda enjoyed it. I can't respect it for being anything close to realistic, but I can say it was a fun ride. I wouldn't watch it again, but once was not terrible. Bringing this back to my review of Battleship, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter's story has the guts to try something different. Yes, it fails this by taking what sounds like an interesting plot from the novel and actionizing the heck out of it. But the whole idea is something fresh when compared to the "aliens invade/gotta fight 'em off/lots of people and even more ET's die/happy times are here again"-formula. Battleship had fun moments, but it was so predictable. It's been done. But nobody has done Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. At least not in recent memory.

Get 'em Abe!  Get that overly sensitive vegetarian vampire!  The sparkly version are easier to hunt by day, after all (thanks to my wife for that one).  And nice Photoshop, somebody. / Source: Blog.Speculist.com

As for the value of the film? In this reviewer's opinion, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was well priced at a Redbox buck and a quarter. It might have been worth a cheap seats ticket too. Though it depends on my mood at the time, I think. It is a dumb movie. If I wasn't in the mood for a dumb movie, or feeling especially intolerant of stupidity, I might have said it was a complete waste of my time. You may also find yourself feeling that way. Depends on how you take to revisionist history featuring the president of the United States fighting bloody hand-to-hand combat with creatures of pure evil, while waving the flag and freeing the slaves and being quite a bit counter to the fairly factual Lincoln from a history text book. You know, the sort of superhero Lincoln we all know he really was, deep down.

Oh, and P.S., I think they messed up their Union flag. It looked like it had fifty stars, instead of the thirty-five of 1863, when the Gettysburg address was given. Whoops.

I may be wrong, and the flag in the movie is in fact this one.  But it looked like it had fifty stars to me, which is a major goof. / Source: CRWFlags.com

The parting comment:

Caution: This little old-skool game interpretation of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter has an equal treatment of flying fake blood as that seen in the movie.  Take that into account before watching.



A two-for on parting comments again. 

Source: Mashable.com

 I use too many commas, sure.  But there is definitely such a thing as too few commas.  As seen above.