Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
2012
**½
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Cast: Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell, Marton Csokas
As a young man, Abraham Lincoln learns that America is infested with vampires, one of whom killed his mother. Armed with a silver-tipped axe, the future President goes out to kill these monsters. This amusing premise was invented by Seth Grahame-Smith, who adapted his own novel to the screen. He creates his own version of the vampire mythology and blends it beautifully with the story of Lincoln's presidency during the Civil War. And yet, the film doesn't exploit its comic possibilities and is never as much fun as it should be. It doesn't help that Timur Bekmambetov uses fast motion-slow motion-fast motion on a loop, and all his action scenes end up looking the same. His philosophy on CGI seems to be that if he's going use it, he might as well overuse it. This results in some absolutely ridiculous, gravity-defying set pieces, like the horse stampede.
