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Rating: 3.4/5
Review: "Dracula Untold movie review"

It is one of the Universal Monsters reboots. And I am not impressed yet. The re-imagining of Dracula of turning him into a sort of anti-hero sounds promising but the movie is too short to suck the audience's attention. With the short runtime of 1 hour 32 minutes (plus credits), there is little things to do. Everything seems rushed to meet the time. The development of Dracula is rushed. What you will be watching is a generic medieval war movie that just happens to have vampires and bats.

The story: It is a seriously straight-forward plot given the short runtime. Vlad (played by Luke Evans) faces troubles and dilemma of protecting his family and people and turns into the titular monster. Surprisingly the movie starts out slow, there are no big battles. The first twenty minutes puts Vlad in a realistic problem of saving his family and people. When they are threatened, he turns to an mysterious sorcerer for a way out. As he becomes a superhuman, he has to fight the urge of human blood. It leads to what we all know, Dracula. The story is like any other war movies but with a dash of vampires. There are only a few action scenes. Though they are decently choreographed, the disappointing thing is that Vlad's real strength is not properly realised in any of those action scenes. Sure, there may be some great CGI of bats swarming around but that's all. For a big budget movie, it is flat out disappointing. Acting is passable. Luke Evan is so-so. Dominic Cooper is in a wasted role who does not appear many times. Music wise is okay, sounds generic.

Overall: With a big budget, I was disappointed at how the movie turns out to be. It seems that first time director Gary Shore has a visionary idea about the whole thing but it is not fully realised here. Instead it turns out to be an ordinary action flick. Vlad has a lot of potential to develop and show but it is not justified by the rushed runtime and tepid action scenes. If this becomes a franchise, I hope the future sequels will turn out better.

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