Despite it's flaws, the movie is still entertaining

Rating: 6/10 (24 June 2012)

If your problem with Quentin Tarantino's alternate-history World War II action flick "Inglourious Basterds" was that it lacked enough high concept, then "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is for you. When I discovered this movie, skepticism washed over me. I mean, Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter? It turned out much better than expected and a fun film filled with lots of violence, blood, gore, and vampire decapitations. his vampire hunting career reaches a hiatus in the middle of a movie where Abraham is now interested in pursuing a career in politics. In the end, he becomes the President of the United States, only to have his career troubled by the devastating Civil War where vampires play a part in it somehow.
In the twenty or so minutes that focus on his presidency, I felt there was an issue with it as it shifted the focus of vampire hunting and focused on politics and the Civil War instead as nothing about vampires was stated during this that time. The vampires are led by Adam (cliche'?). Although he might appear to be the strongest, I felt that the vampire John Barts was actually the main antagonist of the film and represented a bigger threat. While Adam had a lengthy climax, the fight with John Barts was much longer and was more personal. After all, He did kill Abraham's mother. Talking about action scenes, they were all brilliant. They were energetic, full of blood, gore, extremely violent, and dead brutal. Most of them featuring decapitations of the vampires and anyone seeking brutality, deadliness, blood, gore, and violence should be satisfied with them.
The script was a bit uneven. While the second half of the film was a bit better, I felt that the first half of the film was a bit lacking in dialog. There was little talk and there was too many decapitations, blood, and gore. I felt that the scenes progressed too fast and they should have taken it more slowly. You're building a bloody world here, not some panto. In fact, most of the talk in the first part of the film comes from Abraham, due in part to the narration of fragments of his diary. The others rarely talk and probably only talk so little and it's only by the second half that they talk more. However, the performances by the actors were okay, not too terrible to burden the overall movie experience.
There also seemed to be a bit of a disaster with the make-up. Since the time in the story spans from Abraham's early adulthood to his fifties, we could clearly see a change in his facial appearance (a beard). We can also see this change with Abraham's friend Joshua Speed. The same cannot be said with Abraham's wife Mary Todd, and Abraham's other friend Will Johnson. Mary Todd doesn't appear to change with the exception of very few creases on her face whereas Will Johnson doesn't have a change in appearance at all. His face is exactly the same his hair didn't even turn white.
However,this was one of the few times I can say that the 3D was excellent. It takes you in and makes you part of the scenes and is recommended although some of the scenes would make the 3D a nuisance. But other scenes where there is blood will be enhanced by the 3D and some of the blood may even squirt out to your face. And the visual effects! Oh they're such a wonder. But of course, impressive visual effects and eye-catching stunts would be what you would expect from a movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
Overall, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is a film that offers moviegoers a fun time with plenty of bloody and gory action sequences filled with eye-catching stunts, impressive visual effects and excellent 3D effects. Despite the interesting plot, the film is downed by some poor unclear shots, an uneven script that mostly focused on action, not on dialog, and poor make-up. Regardless, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is a movie you should see if you want a bloody fun time.
There's definitely some empty-calories, summer-movie fun to be found in this ludicrous genre mash-up, most of it courtesy of maniacal Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who stages hilarious, imaginative, almost free-form action sequences like nobody in the business. There's a scene in this movie that involves an ax fight between the young Mr. Lincoln and a slave-trading vampire mastermind, set amid a stampeding herd of horses, who are alternately used as conveyances, obstacles and weapons. In its own idiotic and limited way, it's a work of genius, and you could almost say that about the movie as a whole.