Blog: Dracula Untold

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Thursday has become my Day In Town over the past few weeks as that's when I usually go and have lunch and a chat with Mr J Dredge then wander around doing other STUFF. This week, after an extremely productive discussion, I went for a haircut and then to the comic shop. I was then going to see Ms E Morgan for another chat and also CUPPA, but she'd had to cancel due to being poorly, so I found myself at a bit of a loose end. I was due to meet Mr C Lawson for PINTS later on (it is a busy, arduous schedule!) so I decided to go to the pictures.

I thus ended up at the Odeon on Tottenham Court Road, where the film "Dracula Untold" was about to start. I'd seen the chap who plays Dracula on Graham Norton last week and, though it didn't look like it was a particularly brilliant film I thought it might be fun, and certainly better than the Hugh Grant romcom that was my alternate option. I got myself some popcorn and a BEER (I do like it when they let you have BEER at the pictures. BEER!) and settled in to watch it.

Here is my short review: the special effects are GRATE but the rest of it is UTTERLY SILLY.

Here is my slightly longer review: I liked the way they'd tried to think of a proper SECRET ORIGIN for Dracula, but GOODNESS ME it was SO PREDICTABLE I almost wondered if i'd seen it before. When Charles Dance (SPOILERS) says "Ooh, you'll have super-powers for three days, right, but if you drink any blood you'll get stuck like that forever!" they might as well have had a big sign flashing saying "WELL THAT WON'T HAPPEN WILL IT? WHY WOULD HE DO THAT EH?" before cutting to a picture of his wife and child with an ARROW pointing at them saying "Surely his wife, child and country would have to be at stake and THAT'S UNLIKELY RIGHT?"

Shortly after that he turns into a swarm of bats which is PRETTY COOL, but then it gets stupider and stupider. His enemies, The Horrid Turks, realise they're fighting a vampire so decide to fight ONLY AT NIGHT because that's definitely the most sensible thing to do. Dracula goes out and kills hundreds of them all in one go (in a Really Cool Bit, featuring more swarms of bats and a Dead Good Camera Thing where you see the battle reflected on a sword, it's smashing) so they decide the main thing stopping them is being SCARED of what they SEE, so the army starts marching round BLINDFOLD. "You cannot be scared of what you can't see!" says Boss Baddy, incorrectly. Maybe it takes them until nightfall to get to Castle Dracula because they keep going the wrong way and/or falling over things?

Anyway, some more silly things happen, also lots of cool effects, then the STUPIDEST THING OF ALL occurs when his wife says "Hey! Only 1 minute before you're doomed forever, so I think the best thing to do in this situation is to drink my blood and then be a horrible monster" and this leads to a whole heap of EVEN MORE SILLY things happening which, frankly, if Dracula is half the Prince, strategist, leader and GOOD GUY he has been built up to be he would not have done as he would have spent 0.0001 seconds thinking about it first. "Oh I know, I'll transform all my mates into HIDEOUS EVIL MONSTERS, that definitely won't go wrong."

It is IDIOTIC but, as I say, does look good and is amiable enough. There's also a bit at the end that is LIKE the ending of Battlestar Galactica but this time DOESN'T ruin what has gone before because a) what has gone before was just DAFT and b) even a tiny baby could have predicted that it was going to happen. It's meant to be a lead-in to the SEQUEL i guess, though I would be AMAZED if it happened.

If it did though I would, OBVS, totally go and see it!

posted 17/10/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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