TITLE: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
STARRING: Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell
DIRECTOR: Timur Bekmambetov
STUDIO: 20^th Century Fox
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 105 min
RELEASE DATE: June 22, 2012

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was a pretty decent read when it came out; it wove Lincoln’s history with an okay story that I enjoyed. I shuddered when the movie was first being talked about and even more when the trailer came out.  I hoped the film would be some B-movie fun that I could have this summer, and while it is at some parts, the overall tone feels a tad more serious then it should be and it has so much slo-mo that it has officially destroyed any justifiable reason for use in any future action films.

Abraham Lincoln (Walker) witnesses the murder of his mother in his youth. In his quest for vengeance, he discovers the existence of vampires. After surviving his first encounter, Abraham is tutored in the art of vampire hunting by his new mentor Henry Sturgess (Cooper) and is sent to Springfield to begin hunting vampires. He starts to realize how slavery is being used to feed vampires and eventually to turn America into a nation run by vampires; and rest is history-ish with vampires thrown in.

The source material is just screaming to be made into some B-movie goodness; a film for anybody that wants to have a good time, with minimal thought. I usually prefer to have movies with story and some intelligence, but sometimes the film’s subject is much better if they just embrace how preposterous their premise is. For several parts, the film embraces the B-movie style and gives the audience some good old-fashioned fun with great vampire slaying action. The vampires have a good design and are actual monsters instead of misunderstood loners.

The problem with this movie is its tone. The paper-thin characters and overblown set pieces are all fine by me except for the fact that film takes it subject matter a bit more seriously than it ought to. There are a couple of scenes that should be serious, but the bulk of the movie is this way instead of just accepting the premise for what it is and having fun with it. This makes everything else that is wrong with the movie so much worse. And when it tries to have fun, the special effects look like they would have been state of the art 6 years ago and my god, there was so much slo-mo. It was fun at first in action films, but Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter shows how overused it has become and should be retired for the foreseeable future.

I was really hoping that this would the kind of cheesy action film that I can just sit down and enjoy, but instead it’s just another cruddy summer film I regret spending money on.

RATING: 4/10

Images from rottentomatoes.com.