Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Dracula Untold Blu-ray Movie Review

"What kind of man crawls into his own grave in search of hope?"

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown February 1, 2015

At the forty-minute mark, I was fully prepared to deliver a spirited defense of Dracula Untold, conceding it was perhaps a guilty pleasure but admitting I was taken by director Gary Shore and screenwriters Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama's stab at resurrecting a horror icon. There were flaws, oh yes. But there was also something else, stirring deep within the shadows of the film's potential: a spark of invention and reinvention, ready to burst into flame. But that was prior to the forty-minute mark. By the time an hour had passed, I began to understand the negative buzz that preceded the Dracula reimagining and soon found myself shaking my head in dismay. By the time the credits were creeping up the screen, Dracula Untold had come undone, desperate to launch an action-packed, comicbook-style franchise only to lose its soul to glaring plot holes, strange leaps in logic and gaps in the story, a not so healthy dose of unintended camp, and a lazily conceived third act. Dracula Untold might not be as bad as you've heard, but it isn't much better either.

Witness the origin story of one of legend's most captivating figures. The year is 1462 and Transylvania has enjoyed a prolonged period of peace under the just and fair rule of the battle-weary Vlad III (Luke Evans), the prince of Wallachia. But when Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper) demands 1,000 of Wallachia's boys serve in his army, among them Vlad's own son (Art Parkinson), the dark prince must enter into a Faustian bargain with an ancient evil (Charles Dance) to save his family and his people. He gains the strength of a hundred men, the speed of a falling star, and the power to crush his enemies. In exchange, he's inflicted with an insatiable thirst for human blood that could force him into a life of darkness and destroy all that he holds dear.

Evans is earnest and invested, more so than Dracula Untold probably deserves, and there's a seriousness to Shore's approach that borders on reverence. All well and good were it not for the film's slow, disappointing descent into cheesy showdowns, heavy-handed melodrama and FX-laden silliness. While Vlad's story initially focuses on obsession, temptation, and a smartly constructed, deviously unfurled dance with the devil, it ultimately devolves into a tiresome exercise in watching Luke Evans smash legions of CG soldiers with giant CG fists made of bats. Even when the film reaches its climactic endgame -- the final battle between Dracula and his childhood friend-turned-bloodthirsty enemy, Mehmed II -- pain and betrayal is replaced with a laugh-out-loud fight to the death in a tent filled with thousands of silver coins; coins that not only burn Dracula, but essentially function as Kryptonite to Vlad's Superman.

It's in this slippery, poorly implemented slide into comicbook territory that Dracula Untold loses its power. Without a Marvel, DC or Dark Horse through which to build a shared universe of heroes and villains, Universal came up with the bright idea to reimagine its horror icons as super-powered antiheroes, eventually drawn together in an Avengers-style team-up after being introduced in individual films. Not a terrible idea, but certainly one that has its share of challenges, creative or otherwise. Dracula Untold is the first entry in what's meant to be a sprawling series, but one that's built on a miscalculation. Rather than devote its every effort to making an excellent standalone action-horror epic with a few small stepping stones towards a larger franchise -- think Marvel and the original Iron Man -- the studio is more interested in looking ahead to what will come later if Untold drums up a pretty enough profit. The result is not only an origin tale beholden to a larger canvas, it's an adventure mired in the difficulties inherent to repurposing monsters as misunderstood superheroes. There are hints that Vlad is already a monster, references to his past sins and the sociopathic coldness with which he slaughtered his enemies. But far more time is committed to showing just how noble, honorable and well-intentioned our baddie with a heart of gold truly is. Where's the bite?

Adding to the growing complications is a 90-minute runtime that's at least a half-hour too short. The first forty minutes are quite wonderfully paced; suspenseful, deliberate and fairly effective. By the hour mark, though, the clock is running down, leaving Shore with little choice but to scramble through an uneven second act and lunge headlong into a spiraling third. In one particularly jarring scene that appears as if from nowhere, Vlad, still a celebrated prince, is attacked after a priest makes a single private accusation and a ray of sunlight scorches Dracula's skin; something no one outside of Vlad's tent could have possibly seen. His once faithful subjects instantly transform into a frenzied mob that try to burn its beloved leader alive, not because the film has earned this tragic turn of events with all the appropriate character-driven groundwork, but because Sazama and Sharpless need to move the story along and accelerate the narrative. The last thirty minutes of Dracula Untold feels as if a dozen or more scenes have been left on the cutting room floor, with the filmmakers hurrying to the action rather than allowing things to unfold organically. It's as if someone in the audience barked "boooorrrr-iiiiing!" during a test screening and sent everyone behind the scenes scurrying to accommodate.

The real tragedy? Dracula Untold comes so close to pulling it off, yet falls oh so short of success. Had the studio and filmmakers placed more faith in the intelligence and patience of moviegoers, taken more time to develop the story and characters over the course of the entire film, and relied less on CG showstoppers and more on good ol' fashioned conflict, suspense and drama (not that action had to be forsaken), the first entry in Universal's Avengers of Horror would have been a more stirring introduction to the shared universe and monstrous antiheroes of Dracula's world. With a sequel already in the works, here's hoping Universal takes a closer look at Marvel's many impressive achievements (since it's Marvel's path the studio is following) and devises a more sophisticated plan that prioritizes the men and monsters behind horror's greatest icons rather than the new incarnations' flashy super powers and abilities.

Dracula Untold Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dracula Untold mesmerizes with a remarkable 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation. Despite the darkness that falls over much of the film, colors are striking and nicely saturated, from the lush, fire-lit interiors of Vlad's castle to the stormy, oppressive hues that accompany Dracula onto the battlefield. Skintones are warm and lovely (or pale and sickly, as needed) and black levels are deep and foreboding, with inherent crush being the only issue to contend with. Detail is also crisp and exceptionally well-resolved. Significant ringing and aliasing are nowhere to be found, edge definition is exacting, close-ups are rewarding, grain is intact, and delineation is as revealing or secretive as it should be in any given scene. Instances of less than seamless CG abound, and are perhaps more obvious than they were during the film's theatrical release, but that's hardly the fault of the encode. Artifacting, banding and other anomalies are MIA as well, leaving next to nothing to complain about.

Dracula Untold Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Crashing through hordes of Turkish soldiers, hurling armored foes across the battlefield, and attacking with wave after wave of ravenous bats, Dracula Untold's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track doesn't disappoint. LFE output is weighty and aggressive, bolstering Dracula's awe-inspiring powers and abilities with all the thunder and fury you'd expect from sky-splitting supernatural sorcery. Rear speaker activity is just as destructive, adding precise directional effects to an already immersive soundfield in which charging armies, whizzing arrows, clanging swords and wind-swept flight fully envelop the listener. Dialogue, meanwhile, is clear, intelligible and as carefully prioritized as every other element of the soundscape, although Ramin Djawadi's score does occasionally dominate the proceedings a bit too much. No matter. Dracula Untold's AV presentation is monstrously good.

Dracula Untold Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary: Director Gary Shore and production designer Francois Audouy deliver a pleasant, soft-spoken commentary, checking off the usual list of topics with steady ease. The pair occasionally grow silent, and Shore speaks a bit more frequently than Audouy, but the track is no less engaging. Fans will enjoy their dissection of the film, particularly since Shore doesn't waste a lot of time patting everyone on the back, choosing to detail the inspirations and intent behind key scenes, characters and plot points.
• Luke Evans: Creating a Legend (HD, 20 minutes): Evans begins by introducing this "unique Dracula Untold experience," which was clearly meant to be part of a Picture-in-Picture track but instead is presented as a twenty-minute reel of the actor discussing various scenes from the film. Adding to the disappointment is the fact that Evans essentially spends his time narrating each scene, describing everything as it occurs without offering much insight into the characters, performances or production.
• Alternate Opening (HD, 2 minutes): Shore and Audouy provide optional commentary for this significantly weaker alternate opening; a scene that finds Vlad and Mirena whispering sweet nothings in a garden of roses.
• Deleted Scenes (HD, 13 minutes): Six deleted and extended scenes are available -- "Vlad Finds Scattered Turkish Armor," "Village: Babayaga," "Vlad Mesmerizes Ismail," "Mehmed Kills Ismail," "Vlad & Mirena: Blood Thirst" and "Vlad & Cazan: Dead Boys" -- with optional Shore/Audouy commentary.
• Day in the Life: Luke Evans (HD, 10 minutes): On set with the dark prince himself, starting at 5:30am with Evans prepping for a long day's work. From there, though, the "Day in the Life" hops across various scenes, set pieces and weeks, suggesting a much broader video journal that's been trimmed down to a short ten minutes.
• Dracula Retold (HD, 7 minutes): An overview of the history woven through Untold. Topics covered include Vlad the Impaler's origins and rise to power, his relationship with the Turks, the geopolitical conflicts of the era, some of the customs depicted in the film, and more.
• Slaying 1000 (HD, 5 minutes): A brief look at the development and execution of the first supernaturally charged battle in the film, with Vlad tearing through a thousand men attempting to attack his castle.
• The Land of Dracula (HD): An interactive map leading to "Cozia Monastery," "Borgo Pass," "Castle Dracula" and "Broken Tooth Mountain," each of which is populated by a number of short featurettes, FX breakdowns and other odds and ends.

Dracula Untold Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dracula Untold is a tale of two films; the first far better than the second, which begins to emerge after the forty-minute mark. The first is far from perfect, but it embraces its premise with enthusiasm, cleverness and care. The second stumbles and eventually falls, failing to capitalize on the potential laid out in the film's early chapters. Universal's Blu-ray release improves matters, though, thanks to an excellent video presentation, effective DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, and generous (albeit somewhat unsatisfying) spread of special features. Dracula Untold could have been much more, yes, but it isn't a complete misfire. There's enough here to warrant a look, if only to prepare for what will hopefully be much stronger entries in Universal's shared-universe icons of horror reboot.