Count Dracula is one of the more fascinating literary characters that scholars get a kick out of analyzing, which cannot be said for all villainous characters. Because of this, Bram Stoker´s character popularized the concept of the vampire long before Twilight, and has appeared in a number of films played by several actors that would make James Bond blush. Instead of simply adapting Stoker´s novel to the big screen once again, Universal wanted to go for a reboot of their monsters franchise and hope to have a shared universe, like Marvel, two overdone Hollywood tropes in one move. The result was Dracula Untold, which acts as an origin story for the iconic bat-man. Should the movie have remained untold?

The story acts as a reimagining of Vlad the Impaler, whom many believe to be the inspiration behind the character (though in reality it’s only loosely) combined with supernatural elements. Vlad is the prince of Wallachia and Transylvania and has a wife and son. When they are faced with a threat in the form of the Ottoman Empire that demand offerings, Vlad determines the only way to defeat them is to get help from a vampire. The vampire gives him the superhuman powers he needs to defeat the Ottoman army, but warns him that if Vlad  should drink blood in the three days he has these abilities, he will remain a vampire forever.

Seeing as how this is an origin story, it’s fairly obvious on where the whole “Will he remain a vampire forever?” is going to lead, which takes away from the suspense. From the trailers and posters, few people had confidence that this movie was going to be “good.” It just looked like another Hollywood reboot that had a little sense of style by combining Dracula with 300. However the movie made me wish Zack Snyder was directing it because film is dull in both storytelling and presentation. If the film was going to be mediocre with the storytelling at least have some sense of variety with how you present the gothic setting other than painting almost everything gray. It may be redundant to have two movies where iconic villains are instead tragic heroes with this and Malificent, but I can at least appreciate Malificent on a visual standpoint. Here, given that it’s an epic dark fantasy action horror film, I don’t see the reason to hold it back to a PG-13 rating, especially given its subject is a character highly associated with blood. It may sound nitpicky, but it’s at least one way the film could have been made more enjoyable. If Dracula’s going to fight a group of soldiers like the Hulk, at least make it significantly different. He’s not held back by expectations of morality like the superheroes..

Luke Evans is probably the only thing in this movie I can praise. He does a decent job at making Vlad intense and believable, but it’s not enough to hold the film together. Other than the vampire abilities, this really doesn’t seem like the Dracula that a lot of people love. There’s the argument that since it’s an origin story that it would explain why Dracula will eventually behave the way he does, but all we get is how he got his powers and name. They never show how he became the seductive nobleman everyone knows him to be but we’re left to guess based on certain events. A character’s powers do not completely define the character. It doesn’t feel like Dracula, just a less sinister guy who gets vampire powers and encounters some tragedies.

Dracula Untold is generic stuff you’d expect out of Hollywood these days with their rebooting and universe building. Other than some decent action scenes and good acting, there’s not much appeal for the standard movie-goer or Dracula fan. It’s painful to think that in the last decade one of the only entertaining movie vampires was in a kid’s cartoon voiced by Adam Sandler.

-Brady Lass