Dracula Untold

For F*** Magazine

DRACULA UNTOLD

Director : Gary Shore

Cast : Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper, Diarmaid Murtagh, Charles Dance, Charlie Cox, Art Parkinson

Genre : Horror/Fantasy/Thriller

Opens : 2 October 2014

Rating : PG13 (Some Violence and Disturbing Scenes) 

Run time: 93 mins

The title character of Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula has reared his fanged head in popular culture, the vampire of vampires a perennially popular subject in every entertainment medium. This origin story takes us back to 1462, when Dracula preferred the taste of coffee to that of blood and was still known as Vlad Tepes III (Evans). The peace that Prince Vlad’s domain of Wallachia, south of Transylvania, has enjoyed for a decade is under threat. The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed III (Cooper) demands 1000 boys to serve in his army – including Vlad’s young son Ingeras (Parkinson). Driven by a love for his son, his wife Mirena (Gadon) and a dedication to his people, Vlad makes the proverbial deal with the devil. In this case, that devil is the Master Vampire (Dance) who has waited centuries for someone worthy enough to inherit his powers. Of course, there’s a price: with the superhuman strength, speed and the ability to transform into a colony of bats comes an insatiable thirst for human blood and various specific weaknesses, including to sunlight and silver. Will Dracula bear this curse for all eternity to save his people?

            Your willingness to accept this incarnation of Dracula will be contingent on which version of the character, if any, you hold dear. Distancing itself from Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman’s famous performances, Dracula Untold recasts its protagonist as a tortured antihero not unlike the Crow, Spawn or the Punisher. The character is handled similarly to in the Castlevania videogame series and the “perspective flip” is perhaps reminiscent of Maleficent. The medieval fantasy action feel the film is striving for is also clearly influenced by Game of Thrones, with actor Charles Dance and composer Ramin Djawadi involved in both. Unfortunately, this approach makes the film come off as generic. Largely dreary and self-serious, Dracula Untold would have benefitted from just a dash of theatricality and operatic grandeur, elements often associated with Dracula. The film’s production values are decent, the costumes designed by Ngila Dickson (co-designer and Oscar-winner for the Lord of the Rings films) especially praiseworthy - that dragon relief detail on Dracula’s armour sure is cool. Blurry CGI used for set extensions and to create landscapes does let it down somewhat.

            Luke Evans is solid if unremarkable in the lead role. In terms of presence, his Dracula (im)pales in comparison to those of the afore-mentioned three actors, whom every actor to play the role will be measured against. Evans’ Vlad is stoic and strong and there is an attempt on the part of screenwriters Matt Sazama and Buck Sharpless to give him character development. You might be left wondering “how can someone who loves his wife and child so much be okay with impaling thousands of villagers?” The morality and inner dilemma of the character is touched upon, sure, but it isn’t given the depth required to be truly compelling. The line “sometimes the world no longer needs a hero. Sometimes what it needs is a monster”, in addition to being something that probably applies more to Hellboy than to Dracula, just isn’t enough.

            Dominic Cooper, who had a brush with vampires in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and who’s memorably portrayed real-life villain Uday Hussein in The Devil’s Double and who was the bad guy earlier this year in Need For Speed, is the adversary here as well. In this story, Mehmed III grew up alongside Vlad, when Vlad was forcibly conscripted into the Ottoman army as a child. Cooper does look evil-cool in that ornate gold chest plate and guyliner but doesn’t get a lot to do, the story not playing up the angle of “blood brothers-turned-enemies”. As Mirena, Sarah Gadon is little more than “the wife” and could have done with even just one ass-kicking scene to herself. As the being who turns Vlad into a vampire, Veteran actor Charles Dance steals the show, his naturally menacing mug covered in makeup designed to echo Count Orlok from Nosferatu.

            Dracula Untold is intended to launch a new Universal Monsters cinematic universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe got its start with Iron Man, and Iron Man this ain’t – even with Howard Stark in it. That said, Dracula Untold isn’t the mess it could’ve been, considering that this is director Gary Shore’s first feature film. While horror aficionados might thumb their noses at the PG-13 rating, there are still some brutal moments in the film – these vampires don’t sparkle in the sun, they burn, as it should be. There are a few moments of unintentional silliness – when Vlad hurls Ottoman soldiers into the air, they look like they’re victims of a trampoline accident and when he commands swarming bats, it brings to mind Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment of Fantasia. As a period fantasy action film, Dracula Untold is a passable diversion, but as a reimagining of one of the most iconic characters in all of fiction, it leaves a good deal to be desired.

Summary: This “untold” story is a familiar one and in place of elegance and mystique we get humdrum fantasy action, but we’ll take these vampires over those from Twilight any day of the week.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Fast & Furious 6

Written for F*** Magazine, Singapore

FAST & FURIOUS 6

Director: Justin Lin
Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans
Genre: Action, Thriller
Run Time: 130 mins
Opens: 23 May 2013
Rating: PG13 (Violence And Some Coarse Language)

Back in 2001, was there anybody who thought that a movie that was essentially “Point Break with underground street racing” would spawn a franchise consisting of six films and counting? Probably not. The series veered dangerously close to direct-to-DVD territory with Tokyo Drift, but its director Justin Lin set things back on the highway with the fourth and fifth films, proving the Fast and Furious name had legs – or wheels, rather – yet. And if this sixth flick is any indication, there’s no putting on the brakes.

Following their Rio heist from the previous movie, the members of Dominic Toretto’s (Diesel) crew have settled into retirement. Brian O’Conner (Walker) and Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) now have an infant son. Re-enter Diplomatic Security Service Agent Luke Hobbs (Johnson), who pursued the team through Fast Five, calling upon Toretto and his gang to assist in the takedown of a new threat. His name? Owen Shaw (Evans), leader of a dangerous crew who has struck and made away with advanced weapons technology. Dom’s former flame Letty (Rodriguez), who appeared to die in the fourth movie, has resurfaced as a member of Shaw’s criminal posse, and Dom is determined to win her back to the side of good. This synopsis probably should mention that there are a bunch of car chases in there too.

The Fast and Furious series has been given a remodel, evolving from being primarily about car culture to a more accessible globe-hopping action/heist type of film. It’s done the series a world of good, and Justin Lin and company have offered up a rather satisfying summer actioner in this latest installment. Sequels always have to up the ante, and sometimes it’s noticeable when said ante fails to be upped. Fast & Furious 6 does feature bigger set pieces and even more action than its predecessor, so while it isn’t particularly fresh or innovative, it gives the people what they want.

Audiences will benefit from having seen the earlier films, since there are more than a few continuity nods so one might end up feeling a mite lost. The kinship between the various members of Dom’s crew has become an important theme and something of a glue to hold all the car crashes and gunfire together. Hobbs is no longer hot on Dom’s tail and seems to have overcome his grudge on our heroes. Instead, the dramatic tension is provided by Letty’s reappearance. She’s conveniently stricken by that trope of “laser-guided amnesia”, so she works for the villain with no clue who Dom, Brian or anyone else from her ‘former life’ is. There’s a street race scene included as a nod to the franchise’s roots which also functions as a bonding moment for Dom and Letty; a nice way to tie it all together somewhat. The characters are sketched out just enough so we can root for them not to become smears on the asphalt.

But who are we kidding, audiences don’t go to a Fast and Furious flick for “dramatic tension”. They go for the thrills and the spills and thankfully, those are in abundance here. There’s a good mix of heavy duty vehicular warfare-type ‘car’-nage and hand-to-hand martial arts scraps, sometimes happening simultaneously. MMA fighter Gina Carano and Joe Taslim of The Raid: Redemption fame both get to strut their stuff in well-choreographed combat sequences. This also one of those few times you’ll get to see two women (Carano and Rodriguez) violently go at it in the Waterloo tube station completely sober.

The car chases that rip through the streets of London, a tank chase on an elevated Spanish highway and the climactic cargo plane escape on a military airstrip are all exciting and entertaining. There’s a tactility to these scenes such that the scrapes, crunches and impacts don’t feel too artificial. This isn’t one of those films that’s two hours of pixels clanging against pixels. Sure, the computer-generated effects are noticeable, but it’s nowhere as egregious as in 2 Fast 2 Furious. This is, however, one of those films where the laws of physics are but theories. Human bodies take improbable amounts of punishment, soaring or falling through the air to have falls broken by the metal roofs of cars and airstrip runways stretch into infinity – but one should be willing to suspend disbelief enough to get swept along for the ride.

Luke Evans’ Owen Shaw is your typical hard-edged ex-military type villain, whose leadership approach of viewing his team members (essentially dark mirror images of our heroes) as game pieces merely fulfilling their functions stands in contrast to how Dom sees his crew as family. There really isn’t much depth to the character and Evans is a rather bland actor, but it is nice to see our heroes go up against a villain who actually gets behind the wheel of a car which flips other cars off its front, since the baddies of the series so far have mostly been corrupt businessmen or drug kingpins. A stinger during the end credits offers a tantalizing look at who the villain for the inevitable Fast 7 will be.

The film’s attempts at humour are a mixed bag. While Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) listing Hobbs as “Samoan Thor” on his phone is pretty funny, a bit involving a snooty, oh-so-British fancy car salesman is on the indulgent side. Still, it’s nice to see the well-oiled machine comprised of Dom, Brian, Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej, Gisele (Gal Gadot) and Hobbs at it again.

SUMMARY: The family that outraces tanks and military cargo planes together stays together – while never truly inventive or astounding, it’s good smash-bang escapist fun. If you liked Fast Five, odds are Fast & Furious 6 will rev your engine too.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

The Raven

For F*** Magazine

Movie Review                                                                                                                   16/4/12

THE RAVEN

(2012 Release)

Starring: John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve

Directed by: James McTeigue

            In National Treasure, America’s founding fathers were the guardians of a secret treasure stash. In the Men In Black films, Elvis, Steven Spielberg and Sylvester Stallone (who is coincidentally planning his own Poe biopic) are aliens. The Brothers Grimm fought mythical monsters. Here, Edgar Allan Poe is roped in by Baltimore’s finest to solve a series of murders based on his stories. This may not seem as impressive, but taking into account the legendary author’s dark imagination and famously macabre stories, the crimes are pretty gruesome. This is the guy credited with the creation of the modern horror and detective stories, after all.

            There is tremendous potential in the idea of Poe pitted against a killer who takes direct inspiration from his tales. Unfortunately, most of it is squandered in favour of unsophisticated slasher movie fare. “People love blood and murder”, Reynolds (Kevin R McNally) the newspaper editor tells Poe. And in that respect, the movie delivers – the most gruesome murder happens relatively early on in the movie, where the victim is cut in half by a lowering bladed pendulum, something out of a Saw film – though Poe did it first in The Pit and the Pendulum.

Problem is, more people are likely to have a Saw film than read Poe’s story.

            John Cusack’s Poe is quite a disappointment. He’s portrayed as the typical eccentric artist, and there’s no mystique or danger, especially given the enigma the real Poe was. Cusack also doesn’t fit into the period surroundings at all; one would half expect him to lift a ghetto blaster over his head. At its worst, it brings to mind Nicolas Cage – not a good thing.

            Inspector Fields, as played by Luke Evans, is earnest, hardworking, dedicated – and absolutely one-note and boring. The interesting dynamic that might have existed between the author and the policeman is all but absent. The inclusion of Alice Eve as Emily Hamilton, a love interest for Poe, is done rather lazily, considering that he had a wife but was famously asexual and apparently only loved her platonically. But that would have been too difficult to portray and would have gotten in the way of the pulpy thrills now, wouldn’t it? And so, she’s quickly put in jeopardy as a motivator for Poe, and to force Poe and her disapproving father (Brendan Gleeson) to work together.   

            When the identity of the killer is revealed, it is more likely to induce an indifferent “meh” as opposed to the desired “gasp!” And that’s the cardinal sin when it comes to whodunits. Director James McTeigue also delights in heavy-handed faux-symbolism – just because the title of the movie is “The Raven” doesn’t mean one or more of the birds have to flutter into frame in every other scene. However, the art direction and the re-creation of 19^th Century Baltimore are generally pretty good.

So, this is pretty much average Poe.

PS: I take offense to the newspaper editor dismissing criticism (i.e. reviews) as “the easy stuff”.

SUMMARY: I’m no Poe, so the best I can come with is “you won’t be ravin’ about The Raven”. Hey, give me points for trying.

RATING: 2/5 STARS

Jedd Jong