Movie Review: "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"

- by The Rajun Cajun, 23 June 2012

Movie titles can make or break the way a film’s marketed and perceived to the public’s eye. With a title as ridiculous as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, you should know exactly what you’re getting into. Let’s get this review started.

The film starts out with a young Abe Lincoln who witnesses his mother getting killed by a vampire. As he grows up, he finds a mentor who teaches him in the art of vampire killing. Eventually, Abe becomes president, and it’s all history from there on in. The premise is really good, and it sounds like a hell of a fun ride, but it just sort of… fell short. Where did it go wrong?

Benjamin Walker starring as Abe Lincoln. Get used to seeing that axe a lot.

Well, let’s start off with the title: "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter". With a name like that, you have to know what you’re getting into: an over-the-top crazy action movie about a badass president killing blood-sucking demons. Did we get that? Yes and no. Don’t get me wrong, the premise was awesome, and you do get some major kick-ass action scenes with Abe Lincoln swinging around his trusty axe and driving it through the skulls of vampires, but the overuse of CGI and slow-motion kind of ruined the mood. Some slow motion is alright, but whenever something was going down, a good two-thirds of it was in slow motion, and that’s distracting. Abe’s weapon of choice is an axe, but there’s only so much axe-swinging you can do before it gets repetitive. Furthermore, there’s a scene later on in the movie that involves Abe Lincoln  literally  jumping from horse to horse, and it just looks like some terrible  video  game with  the  bad CGI.

As bad as the overuse of those effects were, I’d be willing to let it slide if it weren’t for this little point. The movie’s about Abe Lincoln: the guy on the $5 bill with a beard and a top hat and the whole “Four score and seven years ago” thing, but he doesn’t become that Abe Lincoln until the last 20 minutes of the movie. The majority of the movie is about the young Abe Lincoln, who has no beard, no top hat, and looks a lot like a young Liam Neeson. I’m not saying that it’s a terrible thing, but the trailers and posters sold this movie as the Abe Lincoln we know and love slaying vampires. What we got was alright, but it may as well have been about some ordinary guy killing vampires. You don’t really feel that it’s Abe until the finale.

The more proper kind of Abe.

While the performances were great for what they were, and with what the actors had to work with, I can’t give this film a good rating. Overall, I felt that this movie was just badly written. The pacing was all over the place, as there’s a point in this movie where literally nothing happens for a good twenty-five minutes, yet his training felt ultra rushed. The tone was taken much too seriously, as there were little to no laughs at all. With a title like this, you’d expect this movie to be a little more self-aware into how ridiculous it is, but ultimately it tried to be something that it’s not, and that’s where the whole thing falls apart. I’d recommend this  movie  to someone  who’s  into some  decent fight scenes, as they were  well  choreographed,  but  as I said before, they weren’t that spectacular, and the use of slow-motion was much better used in a film such as Zack Snyder’s 300. I give this movie 4 out of 10 because not only it was disappointing, and could have been so much better than it was, given the premise.

Tagged: movies & tv, Reviews.

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