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When he was young, Abraham Lincoln (as a kid played by Lux Haney-Jardine) wintessed a slave driver, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), beat up his (black) best friend Will (as a kid played by Curtis Harris), and when he and his father Thomas (Joseph Mawle) intervened, Barts vowed revenge and later took the life of Abraham's mother Nancy (Robin McLeavy).

Now, Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) wants revenge, but when he tries to shoot Barts, he finds that bullets can't hurt him and he has superhuman strength. And it seems Lincoln has breathed his last when a mysterious stranger, Henry (Dominic Cooper) intervenes and saves him. Now Henry claims to be a vampire hunter, and he also claims Barts is a vampire, and tells Lincoln he'll only be able to kill him if he's properly trained by someone like Henry ... and thus, Henry trains him, then sends him on assignments, and Lincoln becomes a great vampire killer, so much so that he attracts the attention of head vampire Adam (Rufus Sewell). At the same time though, Lincoln falls in love with lovely Mary (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), but knowing his lifestyle would put her in danger, he pushes her away. At the same time he grows increasingly frustrated because Henry doesn't yet let him kill Barts - so much so that Henry lets him. Then though Lincoln finds out Henry is himself a vampire, if a reluctant one, and turns his back on Henry and the whole vampire-killing thing to concentrate on politics - which is when Adam has Lincoln's best friend Will (now played by Anthony Mackie), so he and his other best friend and employer Speed (Jimmi Simpson) must come to the rescue ... to find that Adam wants to strike a deal, seeing great potential in Lincoln the politician and wanting him to grant equal rights for vampires. But Lincoln turns Adam down, and he and Speed and Will manage to make a hasty escape.

Lincoln marries Mary, rises in political ranks all the way to presidency, and vows to end slavery - which eventually leads to war with the slave-keeping South, led by Confederate president Jefferson Davis (John Rothman). The North start winning of course, but then Adam strikes a deal with Davis, and soon the South employs vampires in their ranks. And the vampires send a warning to Lincoln by killing his young son (Cameron M. Brown) - but that makes him all the more determined to kill all vampires once and for all, and so he has all silver (the one thing that's deadly to vampires) collected in all the North to eventually melt it into bullets and cannonballs. And all he, Will, Speed, and Henry - who despite Lincoln abandoning vampire hunting always remained by his side - have to do now is to ship it by train to Gettysburg. But Speed has betrayed the plan to Adam, so Adam and company attack the train and set fire on it, to get rid of Lincoln, Henry, and their valuable cargo all in one sweep ...

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter sounds like a fun concept, and it suggests everything from political satire and historical farce to just broad comedy. Instead, the film is dead serious - and one has to admit, apart from the effects work, this one looks pretty good, always gets the mood right, and does carry an atmosphere of unease. Plus, the fight scenes are full of ideas one usually more associates with cinema from the far east, and are mostly well-conceived - if it wasn't for the CGI work that's employed just a bit too frequently to supposedly give the scenes an extra shine, but actually making them look unreal. And many of the larger scale action scenes look like right out of a video game (and it's more than likely that they were made by many of the same people and programs usually employed by video game companies. So the battle scenes, when they go into wide range, just feel fake, as does the whole train sequence. One never gets the feel they're using an actual, full size train for the exteriors. But that's only the smaller problem of the movie, the big one is in its writing: It just never takes advantage of its premise, Lincoln's vampire hunting isn't thoroughly intertwined with his political career, no connection is made between vampirism and slavery. Also the whole story is told as factual, with no irony or whatever - things a concept like this seems to pretty much imply. Plus, Lincoln isn't given any character arc, no moral dilemmas of the like, we pretty much just have to accept him as the good guy.

So basically what we're left with is a soulless blockbuster - that though failed at the box office.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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