Escape to the Movies: Dracula Untold - AB Negative

altdoom

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Sep 13, 2011
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Dang, was hoping this one was at least decent. Well the other movie I am holding out for is Fury.
 

Aaron Sylvester

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Jul 1, 2012
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Making it more violent/sexier would mean having to drop the PG13 rating. Which (as far as Hollywood is concerned) translates to a noticeable loss in revenue because 7-15 year olds make up a rather sizable chunk of movie-going audience.

Today if any movie wants to go beyond PG13 it needs to offer an extremely good reason for doing so. There is a growing list of movies which I would've enjoyed much more if the actual effects of the violence (supposedly taking place) was properly shown on screen in all it's brutal glory.

E.g. showing Wolverine effortlessly chopping all his enemies into salami with blood flying everywhere - because that's EXACTLY what infinitely-sharp adamantium blades (if they existed) would do to a human body. The audience would LOVE to see that shit.
But boo hoo PG fucking 13.
 

Azahul

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Apr 16, 2011
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Piorn said:
I don't think Dracula works as a narrative villain. He's the big bad sitting in a castle, doing his thing, drinking blood, abducting maidens, being the night, waiting for an adventurer to slay him.
He's not a specific character, he's an idea. He embodies motifs and themes, that often even vary strongly between depictions. And there have been so many versions.
One of my favourite things about Johnny Alucard, and the rest of the Anno Dracula books for that matter, is that Kim Newman actually gets that this is how you use Dracula. One of the things I remember about Johnny Alucard in particular was that the closer to embodying Dracula Johnny actually gets, the less he resembles anything like a real person.

Anywho, I saw this film a few days back. I really did like Luke Evans and Charles Dance in it, but everyone else was pretty forgettable and the screenplay was absolutely atrocious. I laughed through most of the more "dramatic" moments. I've seen parodies with more emotional weight. Even the presence of actors with actual charisma isn't enough to lift this movie into anything worthwhile.

It's a shame, because there are iotas of a good film buried in there. The line "Sometimes the world doesn't need another hero, sometimes what it needs... is a monster" is actually a rather good idea. Vlad half-mentions the atrocities he committed that earned him the title "the Impaler" a couple of times, and an exploration of that dark side of his being would have made for a fascinating film. "Anti-heroes" are bloody everywhere in modern cinema, but it's pretty rare to have a character who genuinely thinks the best course of action is to lead an army into a village and stick every man, woman, and child on a stake. If the film had actually had the guts to linger on some of the things Vlad does, acts far worse than having to drink a little blood from time to time, we could have a film with some real heft to it. The worst part is that the events are already in the movie, it just treats the impaling of a thousand men with all the same gravitas as flipping the bird at the Sultan.
 

Grabehn

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Sep 22, 2012
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The first thing I thought when I saw the trailer was "This is SO Lords of Shadow 2 - The Movie", and while I cannot stand those games, I got instantly hooked with this movie, the visuals look pretty cool but I still doubt I'll go see it.

And seeing Dominic Cooper as "The Sultan" reminded me of the Devil's Double for some reason.
 

Snooder

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May 12, 2008
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Aaron Sylvester said:
Making it more violent/sexier would mean having to drop the PG13 rating. Which (as far as Hollywood is concerned) translates to a noticeable loss in revenue because 7-15 year olds make up a rather sizable chunk of movie-going audience.
Sure, but 7-15 year olds aren't going to go see a Dracula movie that isn't a comedy. The people who are going to see that movie are going to see it for the the tits and blood. So leaving out the tits and blood is a poor business decision.

Let me put it this way, if your movie isn't going to sell action figures or get parents in the seats, you might as well make it rated R.
 

Torque2100

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Nov 20, 2008
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Just got back from going to see this, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I went in with no expectations whatsoever beyond "Dracula is in it" and I have to say I came out pleasantly surprised. This film hits the Shlock sweet-spot for me, it's a delightful mashup of Fantasy, Horror and Superhero movies. Dracula being re-imagined as a tragic hero and his background re-imagined as a Superhero Origin story is a pitch perfect start for a Re-Boot of the classic Universal Monster movies.

As silly as this film is (and it is very silly) I have to admire the sheer, almighty BALLS it took for filmmakers in Hollywood to use obvious stand-ins for ISIS/ISIL as villains. In a world where thugs behead innocent people on Youtube, extremists attempt to murder Dutch cartoonists for drawing Cartoons critical of their agenda and Islamic Extremist Apologists roam the halls of power; tweaking the noses of these people takes Nards.

Honestly, I'm surprised we didn't hear any hand-wringing from MovieBob over "ugly Islamophobia" in Dracula:Untold.

I'm afraid this is one I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one, Bob. I liked this film, and I want to see their take on Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolfman.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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Imperioratorex Caprae said:
Bram Stoker injected pathos into the story of a real world monster (not a vampire, just a fucked up human being) and made his immortality and lonliness a curse.
That's why I'll always hold up Gary Oldman's performance as the best Dracula story.
which dracula was that?


[quote/]BTW vampires as monsters aren't supposed to be badasses anyway...
[/quote]
Vampires really aren't "suposed" to be anything, as with any myth they change as the culutre sees them...and yeah somtimes that does turn into something stupid but you know thats just how it is...
 

Seracen

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Sep 20, 2009
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I hold out hope that there's an unrated version that is somehow better. Really wanted this and "I, Frankenstein" to at least be marginally fun and memorable. All I really needed was competence. Ah well, if they make good, maybe the sequels and such will be good...
 

karkashan

Corrin Married Xander
May 4, 2009
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I don't get the hate towards the PG-13 rating.

Game of Thrones being able to show all the penises in the world didn't save it from being an adaptation of a shitty source material.

grimabepraised
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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Vault101 said:
Imperioratorex Caprae said:
Bram Stoker injected pathos into the story of a real world monster (not a vampire, just a fucked up human being) and made his immortality and lonliness a curse.
That's why I'll always hold up Gary Oldman's performance as the best Dracula story.
which dracula was that?


[quote/]BTW vampires as monsters aren't supposed to be badasses anyway...
Vampires really aren't "suposed" to be anything, as with any myth they change as the culutre sees them...and yeah somtimes that does turn into something stupid but you know thats just how it is...[/quote]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103874/?ref_=nv_sr_2

That Dracula. Beautiful movie and follows the originator of the myth close enough.

Yeah I know, I sound like the zombie purists... but I just get tired of seeing the same story of "anti-hero with badass powers" hijack otherwise good stories. If you can't make a story with that premise stand on its own without using Dracula or Frankenstein's Monster (remember the recent horrible flop of a movie with the Monster? yeah I almost didn't until this movie) or other established characters, then maybe the story is just worthless... Just my opinion.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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Imperioratorex Caprae said:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103874/?ref_=nv_sr_2

That Dracula. Beautiful movie and follows the originator of the myth close enough.
.
oh my god THAT dracula? it was on TV the other day I watched the first part (untill the..werewolf...sex...umm....yeah)

something about that movie made me seeeerriously unconfortable, I don't know if it was the lighting/colors used or the old special effects but it just made me uneasy....super pale/red dracula certainly did that

I bailed because it was getting late but ALSO because I wanted to read the book..I did want to watch the movie
 

Kahani

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May 25, 2011
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Triaed said:
I think this movie could have had the chops if a minor but very important change was made. See, what bothers me is this:Vlad the Impaler was already a vicious, blood-thirsty killer; this aspect of the historical figure was not explored and expanded.

In the movie they made Vlad into a monster because he turned into a vampire. It would have been infinitely more interesting to see him turn into a vampire because he already was a monster to begin with. That he tried to save his land is an irrelevant setting, the character-driven narrative of my scenario is more interesting to me.
I don't see how that would be interesting. Bad guy is a bad guy from the start and remains a bad guy throughout the film isn't in any way interesting or original, it's exactly the same as the vast majority of bad guys in all media. In fact, this film is actually one of the more original ones around. Having the hero tempted with something bad that will help them save the day isn't exactly uncommon, but usually they either get saved at the last minute or make a heroic sacrifice so that either way they remain the hero. Having the hero actually fall to temptation and become a genuine bad guy is really quite unusual.

That's not to say this film does it well of course, but it's a story arc that has a lot more potential to be interesting than yet another "bad guy is bad guy" or "hero is hero" story.
 

dante brevity

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Apr 15, 2009
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When I heard that this was going to be an origin story that involved Dracula fighting the Turks, it reminded me of The Historian. You all should go read The Historian.
 

Cidward

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Jul 7, 2014
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karkashan said:
I don't get the hate towards the PG-13 rating.

Game of Thrones being able to show all the penises in the world didn't save it from being an adaptation of a shitty source material.
It's the hate toward the sanding off edges to make something more commercial, as PG-13 will make more money than an R rating every time. It goes both ways, too, there are movies with a few swears or other random stuff tacked on to get them up from a PG to a PG-13. It's really hard to find an R-rated action movie anymore, because studios simply don't want to release them that way. One of the reasons I enjoyed "Snowpiercer" so much this year was that it was a real, full-blooded action movie that just let itself be an R-rated movie (it was also limited release by a foreign director, of course, so it had fewer commercial considerations).
 

Nurb

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Dec 9, 2008
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It would have been nice to get vampires back from the pit of boyishly cute angsty teen fanfiction, but I guess this isn't it.