At the Movies: Another possibly interesting idea gets lost

MATT FOX

Abraham Lincoln remains one of the most revered presidents. His face is on our money, his likeness sits in the capitol, and his speeches continue to be recited years later. But a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith would have you believe that’s only part of the story.

Grahame-Smith has earned fame as a writer by giving classic literature and U.S. history a bit of a facelift. He injected zombies into the world of “Pride and Prejudice,” and he added some vampires to the story of President Lincoln and the Civil War.

It is his latter addition to history that is the subject of the latest summer blockbuster release, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” While the premise is intriguing, the movie is much less so. It’s another case of a possibly interesting idea that gets a little lost along the way.

The film begins with a young Lincoln upset over slavery and having been a witness to a ghastly attack on his mother. The attack comes from a slave trader named Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), and results in Lincoln’s mother’s death.

Years later, Lincoln decides to exact revenge on Barts, only to discover he’s something darker than he appears. The attempt ends in failure, but Lincoln’s life is spared by Henry (Dominic Cooper), who explains that Barts is a vampire, one of many roaming the United States.

Lincoln studies with Henry and learns how to hunt and kill

vampires using a special axe. Later, Lincoln is sent to live in Springfield, Ill., where he can help stop the Northern spread of vampires. While there, he joins a pair of friends — Will Johnson (Anthony Mackie) and Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) — in fighting against oppression. This leads to successful campaigns for public office where, for a time, his special skills and secret past as a vampire hunter fade away.

During this period Lincoln also meets, courts, and marries Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), keeping his vampire hunting life a secret. That holds true until his presidency, when the vampire threat rears its head again as part of the larger Civil War conflict.

Soon, Lincoln must work with his friends behind the scenes to stop the first vampire — Adam (Rufus Sewell) — before it’s too late and the Union army is crushed by the vampire hoards fighting for the Confederacy.

Of course this story is pure escapist fantasy, and has to be treated as such. As much as we’d like to blame supernatural evil such as vampires for the blight of slavery in the United States, it’s not going to happen. And as fun as it might be to think of Honest Abe out there beheading monsters in the night, that’s not realistic.

Setting that aside, what a movie like this needs to be a success is a fun story, fun characters, and some action that seamlessly blends into the historical context. That doesn’t really happen here. Though it may be a fun concept in novel form, the film is dark, gritty, and mirthless. It’s more focused on splashes of blood than any bursts of excitement it might generate in the audience. That is where the film fails.

The action sequences — which are plentiful — are ridiculously stylized and totally unbelievable. Director Timur Bekmambetov, who directed “Wanted,” goes way over-the-top with the action sequences here. They’re not interestingly shot, they’re too reliant on special effects, and they’re not remotely believable.

Neither are the characters. Benjamin Walker does his best to breathe life into the Abraham Lincoln character, but too often it comes off as parody rather than an honest portrayal. And that might work if it weren’t for the wildly ridiculous world of the film. None of the other characters offer much depth or create any kind of connection with the audience, either. This is just a film that goes through the motions, loosely using story and characters to connect lavishly unbelievable action sequences. That is an accusation that could be leveled at many summer films in the past, but in this case it is all in service of a boring production.

This film feels a little too much like the supernatural action thriller “Priest,” which flopped last May. That movie was all about moving from one dark, violent sequence to the next in service of a grim story and even more grim characters. “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” feels like that film’s cousin. There may be a little more levity and familiarity in the characters, but there is a similar absence of heart. It’s a labor to get through the film, which is the opposite of what audiences want during the heat of summer.