Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

I must preface this review with the statement that I have read and enjoyed the book that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter  was based on.  My Review Here, Steve's review here.

Disappointed.  That is how I feel; disappointed.  I mean.  I told everyone how great the book was and how factual it was.  I think I have said that the book is 90% biography and 10% vampires.  I stick by that for the book. A lot of poeple I said this to, will not read the book, but they will watch the movie.  What will they think of me after that. 

The acting was good.  I saw it mentioned that the guy playine Lincoln looked a lot like Liam Neeson, my wife mentioned it as well.  Alan Tudyk was Stephen Douglas which was a pleasant surprise. 

The plot was similar to that of the book except that it wasn't any good.  They turned this into an action movie.  Actually it was more of a superhero movie with Lincoln having super human strength and agility.  According to the movie, Lincoln only had one child who was murdered by vampires.  In reality, Lincoln had 4 sons, two of which died before Lincoln himself (vampires?).  The other two sons outlived Lincoln, but only one made it to adulthood (vampires?).  The book gets this right. 

The beauty of the book is that it did not try and shoe horn vampires into the story.  It took tragic events in Lincolns life and attributed them to vampires.  It takes those empty periods when Lincoln wasn't making history and attributed those times to vampires.  The movie fails in this respect.  Maybe there wasn't enough time to tell the Lincoln story and the vampire story, but only telling half makes the movie lose its charm. 

Overall- It is an action movie.  It is not as good as the book.  I would say 10 and up due to action violence. 

2 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I thought the book was okay, but I heard the movie really veered off course with scenes that weren't even in the book.

The Angry Lurker said...

I might try the book afterwards and not before!