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ZERO STARS/**** starring Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith and Simon Kinberg, based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith directed Timur Bekmambetov
by Walter Chaw That idiot Timur Bekmambetov continues his reign of terror with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, an adaptation of a Seth Grahame-Smith novel co-written by Grahame-Smith himself that tries to walk the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies line between reverence and camp but only manages to be ugly and stupid. Abe’s (Benjamin Walker) superpower is honesty, natch–and a silver-coated axe. One night, as a child, after witnessing a vampire kill his mother but somehow not turn her into a vampire (vampires don’t fear the sunlight in this one, either, or at least fear it only as much as Edgar Winter does), Abe embarks on a vengeance-crusade aided by vampire hunter-trainer Henry (Dominic Cooper). Henry has a secret! It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter inspires a sense of absolute despair and hopelessness in the viewer, as it’s not just bad, it’s misguided in every way a film can be misguided, from conception to execution. There’s a horse-stampede fight, a burning bridge and a train, grotesque misuse of slow-motion and CGI, and nary a naked Angelina Jolie anywhere to leaven the stew. I want to muster up some outrage at the portrayal of Confederate soldiers as bloodsucking legions of the damned, but that actually strikes me as the least offensive of the film’s myriad offenses.
By all appearances, Abe is a mild-mannered shopkeeper, wooing the hand of hotsy-totsy Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and pissing off Mary’s fiancé Stephen Douglas (Alan Tudyk, uncredited because he still wants a career after this), lending the seen-but-not-heard Lincoln-Douglas debates a little Twilight ribaldry. Delicious! Abe, as he’s learning to be a lawyer, moonlights (haha, see what I did there? Moonlights) as a serial killer, emptying sleepy Springfield–without arousing any suspicions whatsoever–of bankers, pharmacists, and other hale citizens. We get cameos from Harriet Tubman and Jefferson Davis, since the Confederate vampires, led by Adam (didn’t-you-used-to-be Rufus Sewell), are using slavery as an endless source of food for the larded gentry. This is offensive to some group, but I frankly don’t know which. Abe also has a black sidekick, Will (Anthony Mackie), who acts as his aide-de-camp because Abe one day consented to be whipped alongside him when white vampires stole Will’s parents. This inspires in Abe a deep, abiding sense of fairness for all races, of course, leading to another mischaracterization of the Emancipation Proclamation and an epilogue that depends on the delivery of a sterling silver payload to Gettysburg. I’m not sure where Abe got time to write the Address he delivers on the back of an envelope, given that the train he’s riding is filthy with the bloodsucking damned, but he’s a superhero, don’t you get it?
I like the bit about how vampires can’t kill themselves, because the way that Bekmambetov illustrates it reminded me a little of how David Lynch visualized the force-field thingies in Dune. I also liked how Bekmambetov abandons this little thing during the final fight because, you know, who’s listening anyhow? Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is awful. It’s soul-sucking in the way that only movies this poorly conceived can be soul-sucking: exhausted, exhausting, Wild Wild West all over again. It dangles its bizarre high concept like an angler-fish lure, and the people who bite will likely bite because they want to make fun of it. I used to think there were movies that were so bad they were good–I’m coming around to the idea that those movies are just good and that these movies are just bad. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is miserable stuff, like every other film Bekmambetov’s ever made; like every film he’s bound to make. He’s Uwe Boll with a bankroll, meaning only that more people will see his movies, giving people with money the feeling that they should give him their money to make more movies that will make them money. His name above the credits is fair warning; shame on me for not heeding it.
“I used to think there were movies that were so bad they were good–I’m coming around to the idea that those movies are just good and that these movies are just bad.”
This is wisdom.
Hey, fuck YOU, Cameron, I’m going to see it. I might regret it, but that’s not your realm.
Pol Pot Plant
June 21, 2012,
This sounded like an absolute turd from the get-go, so no real surprises here. No doubt greenlit during the last fading trickle of the vampire fad. Be surprised if three score and ten people bother to sit through the whole running time.
I still like ‘Wanted’ though, I can’t bring myself to lump Timur B in with Uwe Bollocks just yet.
Chris
June 21, 2012,
Walter seems hellbent on wearing out that “that idiot so-and-so” moniker. I think this is the third review in a month where I’ve seen it pop up. I guess he thinks it sounds good, or has shock value, or does the heavy lifting in lieu of an extra paragraph, or whatever, but in all honesty I think that opening sentence (and most sentences) would have worked better without it. Then again, what do I know?
Other than that I can’t say all the bad press this movie is getting surprises me. Whatever ironic charms the book had to offer were probably milked out of the story on its way to becoming a big, noisy blockbuster. I like the idea (and agree) that the Confederate Army being portrayed as vampires seems like it should be offensive to somebody… who exactly is unclear.
Yeah, I should lay off with the idiot stuff – certain words become the crutch when I’m tired and frustrated. It’s a helluva lot easier to just say what I feel rather than examine why I feel it.
I’m the idiot. Good call out.
Kyle
June 22, 2012,
Does Pride and Prejudice and Zombies successfully walk the line between reverence and camp? Color me surprised.
takethecake
June 22, 2012,
this is what happens when film is all spectacle and no brain or heart. it’s the malaise of cinema, and the general Philistine trend of anti-intellectualism in overall culture. i know i’m not getting jaded just because i’m older and demand films to have something more and actually (god forbid) MEAN something. Fuck! I’m actually pissed off that films like this are allowed to exist, siphoning funding and attention away from films that deserve to get made. Don’t even get me started on the bastardization of history with zero justification. There’s no respect, and that’s what peeves me off about this generation of filmmakers.
Rigby
June 23, 2012,
I think the word idiot is a goddamn great word. Don’t stop using it.
I wish you weren’t married, Walter.
I can’t think of a movie less deserving of zero stars–not that it deserved four, mind you…well, maybe more like five? Or all the stars? A Civil War movie that actually has the stones to have absolutely zero sentiment regarding the Confederacy–no, “well the South were noble warriors too”–no, the Confederates were VAMPIRES WHO DRAINED THE BLOOD OF BLACK PEOPLE. Which is, you know, true. That alone makes it worthwhile. I mean, jeez, it’s like the political inverse of Birth of A Nation.
And it succeeds because it takes its ridiculous premise and plays it straight. It’s like a really great 70s horror comic. Try to do this stuff camp and it falls apart. Try to do this stuff Whedonesque and, okay, there’s a fine line there that works for some and not for others. In AL:VH Lincoln really really did free the slaves from vampires and that is it–that is the story. I mean it doesn’t have a lot of competition on this score, but as a “different” take on the Lincoln mythos? I loved it.
Dan C.
June 29, 2012,
I expected this film to be stupid, in some kind of campy recuperable way, but I never guessed it would be so astonishlingly boring. Bekmambetov’s habit of linking his scenes with visual puns was virtually the only relief from the saggy middle of this script. His agent may be the idiot…
I was briefly thrilled when I thought that the film had riffed on George Caleb Bingham’s “Jolly Flatboatman,” replacing the painting’s dancer with an ax-twirling Lincoln, but I can’t swear that it wasn’t a coincidence.
![The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) [2-Disc Deluxe Edition]; Wanted (2008) [2-Disc Special Edition]; Mamma Mia! [2-Disc Special Edition] - DVDs](https://filmfreakcentral.net/wp-content/plugins/contextual-related-posts/default.png "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) [2-Disc Deluxe Edition]; Wanted (2008) [2-Disc Special Edition]; Mamma Mia! [2-Disc Special Edition] - DVDs")
Telling it like it is. Love it! Fuck this movie and the people who pay to see obvious crap like this.
“I used to think there were movies that were so bad they were good–I’m coming around to the idea that those movies are just good and that these movies are just bad.”
This is wisdom.
Hey, fuck YOU, Cameron, I’m going to see it. I might regret it, but that’s not your realm.
This sounded like an absolute turd from the get-go, so no real surprises here. No doubt greenlit during the last fading trickle of the vampire fad. Be surprised if three score and ten people bother to sit through the whole running time.
I still like ‘Wanted’ though, I can’t bring myself to lump Timur B in with Uwe Bollocks just yet.
Walter seems hellbent on wearing out that “that idiot so-and-so” moniker. I think this is the third review in a month where I’ve seen it pop up. I guess he thinks it sounds good, or has shock value, or does the heavy lifting in lieu of an extra paragraph, or whatever, but in all honesty I think that opening sentence (and most sentences) would have worked better without it. Then again, what do I know?
Other than that I can’t say all the bad press this movie is getting surprises me. Whatever ironic charms the book had to offer were probably milked out of the story on its way to becoming a big, noisy blockbuster. I like the idea (and agree) that the Confederate Army being portrayed as vampires seems like it should be offensive to somebody… who exactly is unclear.
Yeah, I should lay off with the idiot stuff – certain words become the crutch when I’m tired and frustrated. It’s a helluva lot easier to just say what I feel rather than examine why I feel it.
I’m the idiot. Good call out.
Does Pride and Prejudice and Zombies successfully walk the line between reverence and camp? Color me surprised.
this is what happens when film is all spectacle and no brain or heart. it’s the malaise of cinema, and the general Philistine trend of anti-intellectualism in overall culture. i know i’m not getting jaded just because i’m older and demand films to have something more and actually (god forbid) MEAN something. Fuck! I’m actually pissed off that films like this are allowed to exist, siphoning funding and attention away from films that deserve to get made. Don’t even get me started on the bastardization of history with zero justification. There’s no respect, and that’s what peeves me off about this generation of filmmakers.
I think the word idiot is a goddamn great word. Don’t stop using it.
I wish you weren’t married, Walter.
I can’t think of a movie less deserving of zero stars–not that it deserved four, mind you…well, maybe more like five? Or all the stars? A Civil War movie that actually has the stones to have absolutely zero sentiment regarding the Confederacy–no, “well the South were noble warriors too”–no, the Confederates were VAMPIRES WHO DRAINED THE BLOOD OF BLACK PEOPLE. Which is, you know, true. That alone makes it worthwhile. I mean, jeez, it’s like the political inverse of Birth of A Nation.
And it succeeds because it takes its ridiculous premise and plays it straight. It’s like a really great 70s horror comic. Try to do this stuff camp and it falls apart. Try to do this stuff Whedonesque and, okay, there’s a fine line there that works for some and not for others. In AL:VH Lincoln really really did free the slaves from vampires and that is it–that is the story. I mean it doesn’t have a lot of competition on this score, but as a “different” take on the Lincoln mythos? I loved it.
I expected this film to be stupid, in some kind of campy recuperable way, but I never guessed it would be so astonishlingly boring. Bekmambetov’s habit of linking his scenes with visual puns was virtually the only relief from the saggy middle of this script. His agent may be the idiot…
I was briefly thrilled when I thought that the film had riffed on George Caleb Bingham’s “Jolly Flatboatman,” replacing the painting’s dancer with an ax-twirling Lincoln, but I can’t swear that it wasn’t a coincidence.