Dracula Untold (2014) - Review

In an era of shared-universe mega-franchises, it's difficult not to distinguish the finished film 'Dracula Untold' from it's clear cynical, money-grabbing ambitions. Universal once had a success franchise with their Universal Monster movies, including 'Dracula', 'Frankenstein', 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' and more, and in a post-Marvel Studios era, they want to try again - properly this time. Everything is connected, and one day Dracula will team-up with the Wolf-Man and Frankenstein to fight the Mummy. But not today.

'Dracula Untold' was released in 2014, and was set to start what was later dubbed as the "Dark Universe". Despite making a fair $217 million against its $70 million budget, the franchise was rebooted in 2017 with 'The Mummy', a $190/345 million flop that turned in $407 million, but not any profit for the studio. Alas, neither started the Dark Universe that Universal had been hoping for, but both could have if the studio had stuck the landing. 'Dracula Untold' made a fair amount of money, 'The Mummy' made more. Perhaps if Universal made a $50 million 'Bride of Frankenstein' that tied the previous two films together, they could have had a franchise by now. It also doesn't help that 'Dracula Untold', like 'The Mummy' after it, isn't very good.

The story introduces us to Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans), whom despite his name and reputation is now a peaceful, heroic Prince of Transylvania. However, when the Sultan (Dominic Cooper) marches up to his kingdom desiring child slaves, Vlad refuses. With war on the horizon, the Prince seeks the help of a mysterious ancient vampire (Charles Dance), who will give him the powers he needs to keep Transylvania and its people safe. He has three days to win victory over the Sultan, but if he drinks human blood - the vampiric curse will remain forever...

...and you can already see where this is going. Taking the bizarre cue of Dracula as being both Vlad the Impaler (never explicitly referenced in Bram Stoker's original novel) and a tragic hero, noble prince, honourable soldier, family man and all-round lovely bloke. Apart from the impaling, obviously. Luke Evans is charming in the lead role, but the story doesn't really show Vlad's descent into evil. Instead, Evans' Dracula is a handsome, muscular, superhero with amazing bat-smashing powers. No communicating with wolves or appearing as mist, but he can fly around as a horde of bats, which I guess makes him a rather odd mix of both Batman and Superman. He's never portrayed as villainous, or morally ambiguous, and the transformation into vampirism doesn't really change Vlad as a character. He's still very much the same, albeit with super-powers and the ability to burn very quickly in sunlight.

Vlad's wife Mirena (Sarah Gadon) is spectacularly dull in the film as well, being surprisingly alright with her husband's transformation, and constantly supportive to the point of boredom. There's something resembling chemistry between the two actors, but there's never any friction between them, never a real dynamic that goes beyond the whole handsome soldier / blonde beauty clichés. Their son is a key element of the story, but never a character in the film, and the way his story concludes feels oddly anti-climactic after everything. It's Charles Dance who really brings gravitas to the film, but I don't really know what they were aiming for with his character. Initially I assumed he was a more 'Nosferatu'-inspired vampire, but instead he's just got dry, grey skin. Dance adds more credibility to the role, but he doesn't appear to be having an enormous amount of fun with the character, feeling rather restrained throughout. A bit of camp menace might've elevated his scenes somewhat. Poor Dominic Cooper meanwhile gets little to say, nothing to do and just stares blankly in a fabulous costume.

Despite the various issues with the film - pacing, dialogue, structure, lack of interest in its respective source material - the production design is generally exquisite, and the costumes look great. Oftentimes the cinematography elevates the film, and the direction from first-time feature director Gary Shore demonstrates a style that, while it doesn't always work, makes for a more interesting viewing experience. The film aspires for Gothic undertones, an epic fantasy world and hyperbolic emotions, but never really succeeds at any of these aspects, feeling trapped in the magical world of generica. Even the ending doesn't really tie-in to the novel 'Dracula', making the whole prequel angle feel redundant.

If this really is the "untold" story of Dracula, it feels like it's already been told multiple times. The ending seems to be directly in reference to 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', along with a variety of other plot elements in the film, whilst nothing in the actual story of 'Dracula Untold' is remotely surprising. Vlad never really makes the decision to become Dracula, and the original novel's themes of temptation, sex and evil are entirely absent. Vlad is just so good he'll become a monster to look after everyone. Psycho-analysing why Dracula is evil might be an interesting experiment, but you have to make him seem evil in the first place - an aspect that 'Dracula Untold' spectacularly fails at. Any good will from going into the film may last a few minutes, but by the end it's surely gone in favour of groans, eye-rolling and relief when the credits role. 4/10

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