- Studio: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
- Release Date: Jun 22, 2012
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Jun 21, 201240The problem with movies based on a single joke is that a single joke is rarely funny enough to sustain the running time of a feature-length film. And with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the whole joke is in the title.
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78Benjamin Walker, as Lincoln, may not have the gangly gravitas of Raymond Massey's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" – he looks like a young Liam Neeson doing a younger Bruce Campbell, frankly – but he does have a sly, self-effacing sense of humor that feels ever so Lincoln-esque
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25A pox upon history and an insult to the 16th president of the United States. It's that, of course - actually, that's the point - but this joyless, deafening cinematic headache commits a different crime. It's a sin against entertainment.
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Jun 21, 201250It's not nearly as snappy or campy as it should be-though its self-seriousness is its own kind of entertainment.
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75Without a doubt the best film we are ever likely to see on the subject - unless there is a sequel, which is unlikely, because at the end, the Lincolns are on their way to the theater.
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50It sounds fun. It's a little fun. For a while. But Bekmanbetov shoots every killing spree like an addled gamer, working that slow-down-speed-up kill-shot cliche like a maniac.
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40The grave tone makes it stiff and leaden, the digi-saturated look is a turn-off. Damnable and disordered.
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58With so much flesh crunching and bloodletting, it could have been scary as all Walking Dead get-out. Instead, the movie plays safe by cutting every theme down the middle - a swing that's effective when splitting wood or vampire skulls, but dull when applied to filmmaking.
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40Given the subject matter, an exercise in delicacy and restraint was unlikely, but it's too bad that the film's concept is way more entertaining than what has ended up on-screen.
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25Enormous in its scope and colossal in its stupidity.
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40It doesn't take long for Bekmambetov to wear out his welcome with a laundry list of generic-looking action sequences: When you've seen one vampire get stabbed in the eyeball, you've seen 'em all.
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20This insipid mashup of history lesson and monster flick takes itself semi-seriously, which is truly deadly.
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Jun 25, 201240Unfortunately, there's also a certain artificiality to the whole film, both visually and narratively.
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0I didn't know whether to be more offended as a moviegoer or as an American, but I do know I'd rather gargle nitroglycerine than watch this again, though given that the film looks like it were buried under a log cabin for a century, I barely saw it the first time.
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83When Bekmambetov is in full stride and the gore, oaths and silver bullets are flying, it's a kick. The title may sound like a joke, but Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is serious fun.
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63One expects a movie called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter to be rich in wit and black humor, but writer Seth Grahame-Smith and director Timur Bekmambetov opt to play things reasonably straight.
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38The movie deserves a stake through the heart.
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70There's definitely some empty-calories, summer-movie fun to be found in this ludicrous genre mashup, most of it courtesy of maniacal Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who stages hilarious, imaginative, almost free-form action sequences like nobody in the business.
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75Instead of getting smirky and campy and blowing out the joke in the first few scenes, Grahame-Smith and director Timur Bekmambetov straight-face it. They ask themselves, well, what would it be like if the main struggle of Lincoln's life were with vampires intent on taking over the new world? And they answer the question as realistically and soberly as they can within this loony framework.
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63The script leaps forward with an absurdity almost as great as Lincoln's own strength.
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88A blast, the best action movie of the summer.
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25Other than its campy title, not much about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is fun.
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42The training montage where Lincoln learns to twirl his axe around his body like a baton for no apparent purpose is neither the movie's first laughable sequence nor its last, but it sums up the movie's aesthetic: The filmmakers mistakenly think nothing is silly if it's done with a grim enough facial expression.
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38The biggest high comes from the images evoked by the title alone, or the title in tandem with the movie poster, doesn't it?
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60Bekmambetov directs with gusto, and the forthright absurdity of the story, combined with its weirdly heartfelt self-belief is winning.
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Jun 20, 201270Genre enthusiasts will lap up the mixture of action and fantasy, while history buffs who don't mind a bit of rewriting will dig into an alternative spin on the Civil War period.
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40Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is such a smashing title it's too bad someone had to spoil things by making a movie to go with it.
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40Watching this is like flipping channels randomly between a Masterpiece Theatre drama and a splatter film on Cinemax. If you're like me, you'll stick with the splatter.
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20This ludicrous CGI extravaganza, based on the comic horror novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, can stand proudly beside the best-worst of Ed Wood and Uwe Boll.
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40What [Bekmambetov] doesn't do is offer us any respite from his 3D CGI barrage, an assault on the senses that makes the bullet John Wilkes Booth fired into the real Abe's noggin seem calming by comparison.
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63A stylish slasher of a movie, a monster flick that does its vampires right, if not their real-life counterparts.
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70A Civil War-era actioner of questionable taste and historical accuracy but surprisingly consistent entertainment value.
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40Possible resulting "fun" is only slightly mitigated by contemplation of the wearisome decadence of American popular culture.
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20What I don't understand is why this extended piece of idiocy chose to sink its stinky teeth into our 16th president. If an axe-wielding hero was required, George Washington would have been the better choice, with the Redcoats as bloodsuckers.
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63Both terribly silly and a lot of fun.