Abraham Lincon: Vampire Hunter

First off, a shout out to Dan the Movie Man. Dan reviews movies, just like us. Only Dan is far more prolific, and his taste is far better. So if you want legitimate suggestions for movies to go watch, check out his site. If you want to keep it mindless, stay right here.

This week we watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Now, before I get started, I wanted to mention that this movie got panned by the critics. To which many movie-goers responded "OF COURSE. It's ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, you twats. What were you expecting?" Now, that opens up an actual good discussion: If a movie is intentionally bad, does that excuse it's badness? Personally, I say no, it doesn't. But I can enjoy it nonetheless, which is all that I ask of a movie-going experience. So really, movie quality is more of a side note to me - the main question is whether I have fun or not, to which quality is mostly irrelevant.

Evan and I whiffed on half the previews. Lawless and Gangster Squad are pretty much the same movie, only set in two different locales (in the boonies, and urban Hollywood), and the trailers could both be set to this (it's from the MI:4trailer, if you recognized it). We both got ParaNorman, and then Evan took the week with The Watch (while I desperately hoped that Iron Sky would make it to Calgary. I was wrong).

The movie opens with a young Abe sticking up for his black friend, Will, and both end up getting beaten by a slaver. Abe's father intervenes, punching the slaver into a conveniently placed river. In retaliation, the slaver sneaks into the Lincoln household that night and bites Abe's mom. She ends up dying, and Abe wants to take revenge, but has to abide by a promise made to his father that he won't do anything stupid. When his father dies a number of years later, Abe (Benjamin Walker) can now take revenge. That's when he discovers that the slaver's a vampire, and much harder to kill than normal. He's rescued by HowardStark - sorry, Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who teaches him how to kill vampires, and it. is. ON!

Henry sends him to a town with many vampires, and updates him with targets to kill. When he's not busy slaying vampires at night, he works as a stock boy, studies hard to be a lawyer and woos Mary Todd, who was briefly engaged to Stephen A Douglas (played by Alan Tudyk, one of my favourite actors). Eventually, Lincoln becomes president (you should know this already) and can still kick your ass seven ways from Sunday. He's Abraham Lincoln, fool!

This movie is all kinds of awesome, in all kinds of ridiculous ways. It's by the guy who did Wanted, so you know the action is going to be so far over the top, you won't be able to see the top any more. It take some time to get there, but then BAM! - Hyperkinetic action sequence during a massive horse stampede, and the audience is bowled over. I loved it. Of course, I did, it's exactly my type of movie. Now, there are going to be many people (and by that, I mean critics) who will undoubtedly look down upon this movie as a large amount of over-caffeinated tripe. And they are 100% correct. But there are many other people who thoroughly enjoy over-caffeinated tripe (myself among them) and we'll all love this movie. Sure, there are parts that could be better. The movie slows down a lot before the climax, when Abe runs for president and we have a time jump while he raises a family and tries to hold the country back from the brink of war. When it spills over, he's wracked with doubt about whether he did the right thing (what with the south fighting for slavery and vampirism). That could have used more action. But then it slides right back into jacked up action aboard a train on fire, and off we go for the climax.

It's a theatre movie, but only according to me. If you have a refined taste in entertainment, you probably won't like it. However, if you've enjoyed the same movies that I have, you will undoubtedly have a blast.

One last note. At the end of the movie, there's a scene set in the present that calls back to the one in which Abe meets Henry for the first time. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to skin color, but Evan thinks the guy was black. Could we be looking at Barack Obama: Vampire Hunter? He'd be played by Will Smith, and take on the Wall Street banker types (they suck your blood and your bank account). Evan and I are all in on this idea. Who can we throw money at to make it happen?