Movie Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

If you had told me when I was kid learning about Abraham Lincoln that at some point during my lifetime there was going to be a movie made where he hunts and kills vampires, I would have said you were crazy. Fast forward to 2012 and we get exactly that. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter had me sold on the title alone and thankfully it didn't disappoint.  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter delivers on what the title promises. We can get a whole movie with Honest Abe killing a bunch of vampires with an axe and it's a pretty fun ride. The actions scenes are pretty badass. Timur Bekambetov was the perfect choice to direct this and his use of super slo-mo and extreme close-ups puts the audience right in the middle of the action. This style has clearly been duplicated by a lot of people, but no ones does it better than Bekambetov. The final scene which features a Lincoln and Co. fighting a ton of vampires on a train while the tracks burn is completely awesome and Bekambetov's brilliant action direction is on full display during that sequence in particular. The title doesn't summarize the whole movie though. There is actually a surprising amount of historical accuracy in the film. It took a lot of the major events, people, and themes from Lincoln's life and just inserted vampires into them. It was interesting touch that I didn't really expect going into this film. The acting is serviceable all around as well. Benjamin Walker makes a pretty decent Lincoln and Dominic Copper and Anthony Mackie give the best performances of all as Lincoln's vampire hunting mentor Henry Sturges and Lincoln's best friend Will Johnson respectively. The only things that prevent Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter from being great are the slow start and the tone. It breaks pretty slow out of the gate and it would have benefited from better pacing during Lincoln's training scenes with Sturges. Also the tone was at times too serious. Most of the time it was fine, but sometimes it took itself way too seriously and forgot about it's over-the-top premise and tried to be a 100% stone serious film which just didn't work. Though it's far from perfect, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is an entertaining, bloody, twisted history lesson that lives up to it's amazing title.

3.5/5 Stars