Abraham Lincoln : Chasseur de vampires

I’m actually no longer surprised that American youth are so dumb. As long as such films are being made in America, it will be hard for them not to believe that the first American President, Abe Lincoln, hunted vampires in the past… and if they bit him and he became a fallen vampire, he keeps hunting them to this day. Timur Bekmambetov shot it well, I have to give him that. America loves this kind of spectacular bullshit. The protagonist, however, annoyed me a lot and the same goes for the entire story. Well, I suspected as much. (18/12/2013)

OK, in 2004 Timur and his group found out that a modern and competitive blockbuster can also be made in Russia. In 2008 they found that if their slightly outdated "hyper-effect-slow-motion-bullet-time" method is applied to sufficiently crazy and lively material, is still quite wanted. In 2012 this unpleasant experiment revealed that the out-of-fashion procedures may hold up an action B-movie, but hardly an action B-movie packed with the lead of patriotism, serious (and lousily filmed) scenes and characters, who are constantly trying to convince you that the 16th American president slicing vampires with a silver-plated ax is something quite realistic. If the film relinquished the stupid pathos and the effort to seriously incorporate the completely demented motif of toothy slavers into the historical framework, it could actually have been quite decent fun. But the film tries to look serious and instead of entertaining straightforwardly, it annoys. How the hell do I take seriously the statements of a guy who for a moment pretends to be the embodiment of statehood and then waves his ax in slow motion? God forbid, I am not that stupid yet. Timur proudly placed himself next to Roland, but the question is how many years it will take him to start making fun of himself like maestro Emmerich... P.S. I admit, Bekmambetov is still a very frugal guy. To acquire such craziness for 70 million is very fiscally responsible. Maybe "Kalousek: Deficit Hunter" should take him on as a consultant. (11/07/2012)

A depraved picture that will seem even weirder when they release Spielberg’s Lincoln later on this year. The digital action scenes like where the bad guy throws a horse at Abe, or when the steam engine explodes are so “OTT" that they are entertaining, while the rest is a waste of time. The hero has no charisma and the only thing interesting about him is his shooting ax. (11/11/2012)

Well... That was stupid. How can anyone think that such a story can be made deadly serious without a single drop of humor? Timur Bekmambetov seems to have been instructed to rip off his own Wanted, which unfortunately he likes to do, and so he dutifully does so throughout the film (the training, the first few actions, the ending with the train...). I give a star only for the scene with the horse herd, which was extremely stupid and overwrought, but also funny. (25/11/2012)

Bekmambetov's casting of pearls before swine. Indeed, the magic of Vampire Hunter consists in particular of how it resists all attempts at cinematic analysis. Not that the finger-prodding of history serving as a backdrop for a supremely B-movie spectacle is anything unprecedented (Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS based its entire career on it... well, okay, maybe more of a D movie), but perhaps no one has ever worked with such a premise like Bekmambetov. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln abounds with the same devices as the director's previous opuses, namely the elusiveness of the fictional universe, the physics in service of the scenes and not the other way around, that very unique sense of humor (that is, unless you find comical a scene where the protagonist holds his opponent's head in a forge while diligently stomping on the bellows, then yes, the film is lacking in lighter moments), an incredibly unscrupulous handling of the connection between fiction and reality, or characters that do not allow the audience to empathize but force them instead to take the position of observers of the events. In this case, unfortunately, the film cannot even rely on its actors. The result is a film that works far more naturally when there are gunshots through the eye, horses getting tossed about, or trains getting picked up than when the protagonist's son dies and black men rise up against the slave driver’s whip. Indeed, the crux here lies in the incredibly brilliant action sequences, where this Kazakh visual pervert wipes the eyes of all directors who frame one or two establishing shots with an entire scene, while here the drooling Bekmambetov creates a gallery of visual perfectionism with every shot, creating a pure cinematic comic book. What's particularly funny here is how the use of 3D effects falls especially on the bad side, which is then brutally destroyed by horizontal action through the main character. Oh yeah, and the film cost less than 70 million to make. That’s right, not even close to half the budget of the last Pirates of the Caribbean (where nothing at all happens). The last question: who is the target audience...? Probably not "we're going to see a movie based on a comic book", probably not "they're showing something about Abraham Lincoln", and "I heard there’s a new vampire movie" is probably not going to be exactly the brass ring either. So the target audience will be mostly "come see the new Bekmambetov!" (02/12/2012)