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Dracula Untold and The Vampire Lestat
Nov. 16th, 2014 02:04 am(No spoilers) Went and saw "Dracula Untold," tonight, with Grant and Ananda. Ananda and I just happened to watch the old Gary Oldman/Wynona Ryder "Bram Stoker's Dracula," which was my absolute favorite movie EVAR when I was her age, right before the trailer for this new one came out. Trailer looked somewhat compelling. Grant wanted to see it, and we only have a movie we're both interested in come out once or twice a year, so we went.
It was watchable, and I say that as someone whose mind drifts easily - I walk out of and away from movies without a backwards glance. It was also underwhelming, though. Interesting, the plot points they kept and the ones they added in. It had decent action scenes. And there was a scene in a cave that was almost captivating, and had me on the edge of my seat for a few minutes. But...I don't know, other than that, there was not enough character development - almost none at all really. I kinda just didn't care about the characters or plotline*. It was kinda like they took sweeping, "Lord of the Rings" vistas, some sets and costumes from "Game of Thrones", and standard period piece battle scenes, and stirred something up that had a very "Snow White: The Huntsman" vibe about it. Like, oh, this is pretty and they're doing a good enough job of it but it's forgettable, and it's also pretty easy to just make fun of it and have a good laugh.
It's also definitely one of those movies that only uses women as occasional extras, and one dimensional window dressing around the main dude.
*Exception - Vampire 1.0, aka Tyrion Lannister, stole the show. I wanted to know his story and see him in action. Unfortunately, he was on screen for approximately 6% of the movie.
On the other hand, I'm reading The Vampire Lestat, and have been so pleasantly surprised. It is, so far, easily as good as the best early Vampire Chronicles. The last few "New Tales" got dull at times, and Anne Rice's aversion to being edited sometimes seemed so problematic, that I was going in with hope but also trepidation.
But this is GREAT. Now and then a side character's history will drag for me just a little, but by and large there have actually been some years passing and so she's got some real stuff to fill in. And she's doing it, and then some. I laughed out loud and felt completely seduced, in the first few pages. I'm trying to ration it out so it won't be over too quickly.
It was watchable, and I say that as someone whose mind drifts easily - I walk out of and away from movies without a backwards glance. It was also underwhelming, though. Interesting, the plot points they kept and the ones they added in. It had decent action scenes. And there was a scene in a cave that was almost captivating, and had me on the edge of my seat for a few minutes. But...I don't know, other than that, there was not enough character development - almost none at all really. I kinda just didn't care about the characters or plotline*. It was kinda like they took sweeping, "Lord of the Rings" vistas, some sets and costumes from "Game of Thrones", and standard period piece battle scenes, and stirred something up that had a very "Snow White: The Huntsman" vibe about it. Like, oh, this is pretty and they're doing a good enough job of it but it's forgettable, and it's also pretty easy to just make fun of it and have a good laugh.
It's also definitely one of those movies that only uses women as occasional extras, and one dimensional window dressing around the main dude.
*Exception - Vampire 1.0, aka Tyrion Lannister, stole the show. I wanted to know his story and see him in action. Unfortunately, he was on screen for approximately 6% of the movie.
On the other hand, I'm reading The Vampire Lestat, and have been so pleasantly surprised. It is, so far, easily as good as the best early Vampire Chronicles. The last few "New Tales" got dull at times, and Anne Rice's aversion to being edited sometimes seemed so problematic, that I was going in with hope but also trepidation.
But this is GREAT. Now and then a side character's history will drag for me just a little, but by and large there have actually been some years passing and so she's got some real stuff to fill in. And she's doing it, and then some. I laughed out loud and felt completely seduced, in the first few pages. I'm trying to ration it out so it won't be over too quickly.
