Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter User Reviews

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I can't really believe it either. I won't necessarily call myself the worlds biggest history buff, but if there's always been one president that's intrigued me more than the others, it is Abraham Lincoln. I remember when this novel came out a few years ago, and many scoffed at the idea of arguably the greatest president this country has ever seen being a secret Vampire Hunter, but it was always an idea that intrigued me. Now I haven't read the book, but I actually plan on doing so after seeing the movie.

The first thing I will warn you about is when you walk into a movie like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, please leave your brain at the door. If you sit down and think about it way too much, you will pull this movie apart in about five minutes. Sure the idea is completely ludicrous, and that's fine with me. However, in a movie where you see a grown man throw a horse at someone, you have to turn your brain off.

The film goes surprisingly into some of the more historical events of Lincoln's life, which surprised me because I wasn't expecting it to at all. The film doesn't rewrite too much history behind Lincoln, instead it spreads its completely wild tale within the historic events that make up Lincolns life, right up to his untimely and shocking death. And you know, for relative newcomer Benjamin Walker, I thought he played an outstanding Lincoln, despite the fact that this is only the first Lincoln movie coming out this year (and we all know that Daniel Day-Lewis is going to crush it and win Oscars later this year), but for a dude stuck in a b-movie, he sure does a fine job of playing the role of a President.

The action sequences are what make this movie fantastic fun. Sure, the first major action sequence made me question if the characters in the movie were living in The Matrix, with people floating far up into the sky and stuff, but then I remembered back on Bekmambetov's last movie, Wanted, and I remembered that this dude likes to do some insane stuff. However unlike Wanted, I thoroughly enjoyed this.

The best part is, the film never really collapses around the ludicrous plot that it is throwing at the audience. It takes itself pretty seriously, despite some of the campy and straight out hilarious action sequences (did I mention a dude throws a horse yet?), I wouldn't even really say anything here is what I would consider above a PG-13 rating, but you know, I'm not the powers that be who made that decision. There are some beheadings, but hell, I've seen more raunch in a PG-13 film then this.

My only complaint about the movie is simply, at times it feels like it is all on fast forward. I'm sure in the novel things are a bit more fleshed out then they are here, but certain scenes I felt could have used a little more substance to drive the point home.

For what it's worth, you can do a lot worse than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.