The title sounds like a joke, but the movie is actually pretty serious about it. Based on the novel of the same title by Seth Grahame-Smith (who writes the script here), produced by Tim Burton and directed by Timur Bekmambetov (‘Night Watch’, ‘Wanted’), ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ follows the historical character in his efforts to become a vampire hunter and the 16th President of the United States; his political career and public life, however, are just the background to a mostly conventional and unimaginative story.
The plot starts in 1818, when a 9-year-old Lincoln witnesses the dead of his mother in the hands of a vampire. Years later, being a young man, he meets Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), a vampire hunter that teaches him all he needs to know to defeat the un-dead while searching for his mother’s killer. Lincoln then starts a double life: laws student, shop assistant and anti-slavery advocate by day, vampire killer by night. As much fun as it may sound, it’s just dull.
While the setting and casting may be better than expected (Benjamin Walker does a fine job as Lincoln), the action scenes and the mixture of vampires and historical elements are disappointing. It never becomes relevant that Abraham Lincoln may have been a vampire hunter. The script fails to take advantage of the premise, and both the characters and visuals are unable to give some ground to the story in itself.
What I found more disappointing, though, are the action scenes, overloaded with CGI effects that make them look like a video game.
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