Dracula Untold - Better Left Untold

Universal Studios were the kings of monster films for most of the first half of the 1900s. Basically everything any monster or horror film does today it has Universal to thank for. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, chances are the monster that pops into your mind when someone says "monster movie" is Universal's interpretation of it.

Universal did with their monster films last century what Marvel is basically doing with their superhero films today. They made a large universe where the different actors would jump from film to film to reprise their role as often as possible. You might say that Universal did it bigger than Marvel, but not quite as unified and elaborate. Universal has taken notice of what Marvel is doing today, that the world still likes the predictable but different enough films within a certain catch-all genre. The world wants to see their favourite characters again and again in different scenarios, and they want to see them meet and interact with their other favourite characters. Therefore Universal has decided to once again go the route of the multi-franchises by reigniting their monster movie madness.

"Dracula Untold" is the story of Dracula becoming the Dracula. It's an origin story, plain and simple. We even get to see examples of the cliché discovering-their-powers scenes that superhero films have all but depleted over the past decade. We see Vlad Tepes (aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula) go from comfortably living as the prince of Transylvania with his beautiful wife and son to having the Turkish empire at his doorstep, demanding either a thousand boy soldiers or for Transylvania to crumble under their army. Vlad having himself been sent to the Turks to serve as a boy soldier by his own father ultimately denies them the demand, leading both to the Turks attacking Transylvania with all their might, and Vlad starting his journey to become Dracula the vampire.

"Dracula Untold" is supposed to be the first film in a long line of monster films. We're supposed to get to see all the classic monsters on the big screen again, they're to be reintroduced to a new generation who's only heard of these monsters through references made on their favourite television shows and by their parents. Not even I have any extensive relationship with the Universal monsters, it was long before my time, and in my lifetime there's for the most part only been mediocre films made depicting them. Unfortunately "Dracula Untold" continues that trend.

The saddest part of this film is that it just falls so incredibly flat. There is not a single thing I can take from this film that I haven't already taken from hundreds of other films. It brings nothing new to the genre, rather it spoils it with unfit tropes from other genres, the narrative is rehashed and heard a million times before by anyone, you never even start to care for any of the characters, and visually it's as bland as fantasy films get these days. I wasn't expecting anything revolutionary in any field, but I did expect a film that could at least hold a candle somewhat near the character of Dracula.
One of the biggest flaws is how Vlad becoming Dracula is handled. There are a lot of ifs and if-nots, but you the viewer know for certain that he is going to become Dracula eventually. This is something that cannot be changed, but it is something that can be handled. Instead they chose to make a substantial part of the plot about whether or not Vlad was going to become Dracula, they tried really hard to convince us that maybe he wouldn't become him, that maybe there would be a twist, but it didn't work. Dracula becomes Dracula, that's how it goes, it's even in the title. Leaving the entire effort pointless and a waste of time.

The acting is not necessarily bad, it's on the same level as most films of its genre. You get what's on the tin, but nothing more. Don't expect to see any glimmers of deep-down character traits, very few have any real depth, and even the ones who do only do because of the viewer's pre-knowledge of them. Some of the characters are downright formulaic and effortless, doing only what the script tells them without any notion that they might have existed a second before the scene first showed them. Even Vlad suffers from this, and he got a montage at the beginning telling his life story up to that point, not even that was enough to convince me that he was anything but a character on a screen.

Overall this film is not very good. It's the kind of film you might want to watch a cold autumn's eve if there's either nothing else to watch, or because you're doing a run-through of various monster films. There are very few reasons you should watch this, but like the titular character himself says: "Sometimes the world doesn't need a hero, it needs a monster." Maybe he was talking about the film.