What is the Nature of the Beast in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? A Movie Review

*spoiler alert.

Director: Timur Bekmambetov.

Writer: Seth Grahame-Smith.

Cast: Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell and Dominic Cooper.

Some fans of Seth Grahame-Smith's works may very well wonder why he's deviated in the translation of his novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter to screen. Quite often, the reason is simple: an author cannot pack all the nuances he has put in one medium onto another. And when he wrote the original treatment, he is well within his rights to do whatever he wants for the theatrical version.

This author takes one ideology, the abolition of slavery, and hammers it home to no end. This concept is also expanded to include characters that do not see themselves as slaves at all, but also in how they contribute to the problem. In this film, nearly everyone is suffering from some kind of malady.

Benjamin Walker does a good job in playing a young-looking Lincoln who is tormented from the loss of his mother. He takes his anger and channels it into becoming a superhero of his time; his attitude, a thirst for vengeance, is similar to Batman’s. Lincoln finds the war against the undead difficult, and he has to take the fight elsewhere. His rise as a politician is glossed upon, and that only becomes a backdrop to exploring other milestones in his life, namely a theatrical recreation of his Gettysburg Address. Strangely, unlike the book, the reason behind his eventual assassination does not get considered at all.

The story begins with a very young Lincoln involved in three dire events: witnessing the mistreatment of man's inhumanity to his fellow man no matter what the colour, learning about the human slave trade, and watching his mother become a victim of a vampire. She dies and that only sets the young man's path towards destiny.

Lincoln's anger is only seething, and a mysterious Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper) will have to train him in the fine art of vampire slaying. Eventually he will have to compromise his principles to a powerful aggression that might make Bruce Wayne wince. This president-to-be has to cross the fine line that is reminiscent of the Cain and Abel myth, and he must prove he can kill.

Interestingly enough, the allusions to the tales found in the Old Testament do not end there. The movie begins with a quote from Genesis 17:5 and that immediately establishes a tone in the film which is appropriate. Abraham is an individual who is “a father of a multitude of nations.” People who follow his values find themselves a little better off than usual, and that may be why the vampires, especially Adam (Rufus Sewell), take an interest in him.

He wants to make him a member of their clan, but Lincoln wants nothing to do with it. The subtext nicely plays onto Grahame-Smith’s dissemination of what slavery is about, but the tale gets side-tracked with its comic book style direction. Since Lincoln’s life is an open book, his family will be made to suffer in true super villain style. Adam allies himself with the Southern Confederacy in hopes that their influence will spread, and also to maintain their herd (their food stock is comprised of slaves).

Although the vampire race's purpose on American soil is explained, how all this alludes to their involvement in the slave trade is weak. If writer Seth Grahame-Smith really wanted to focus on the issues of the era, he would have done better to give William Johnson (Anthony Mackioe) a greater role. He escaped to the North via the Underground Railroad, and more of what that was about could have vastly improved the story.

This movie moves more like a popcorn epic that has some good dark moments. These lords of the night have a few abilities not always used in modern interpretations—namely the fact that they are revenants spreading disease. They can also flit about like ghosts and they are vulnerable to silver, a trait normally reserved for werewolves. The purity of the metal is said to be repulsive to them, and they can be incapacitated. These facts give this film a distinct Slavic flavour.

Director Timur Bekmambetov does a great job in bringing that style out in this tale. Audiences familiar with his work in Night Watch and Day Watch will get to see the same tricks again in how vampires are portrayed and with familiar slow-motion fighting sequences. Some of the stunt work is in par with many a Die Hard film, especially in the burning bridge sequence, but the eye-candy are merely distractions from the story.

The real sell is in how cinematographer Caleb Deschanel presents a beautifully rich world filled with old country art deco and Colonial Georgian style architecture that anyone can step into.

Out of all the supporting characters that prove themselves as masterfully complex, Henry (Dominic Cooper), is the best of them all. He is the Vampire Lestat of this tale. Cooper once again proves that he can delve into being the character, and this mysterious individual deserves a story of his own to look at the world changing around him than Lincoln's.

Should there be an expansion of this product to make Henry a lead character, Grahame-Smith will have a product that will be remembered in the same level as Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. He has the potential to write original tales than to take moments out of history or literature, and spin it with the supernatural. Instead of transitioning to Hollywood, this author should really get back to writing more historical fantasies!


Overall: 7 out of 10.

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Posted in: 2012,2012 release,movie poster,movie review,vampire,vampire apocalypse,vampires