A movie about monsters, perhaps more real than you might think

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2012)

This is an enjoyable alternate history movie which seems to me, more than anything else, to be a movie that you can walk away having learned something about fighting bloodthirsty monsters. The acting is done quite well, with Benjamin Walker playing a somber and surprisingly believable young president. I especially liked how Lincoln was portrayed as having an unstoppable work ethic and astonishingly strong convictions (both in terms of fighting vampires and more social evils such as slavery).
Watching the movie, I was struck by the sheer will and tenacity displayed in Lincoln to defeat what must have seemed to him to be an inexorable force that was bent on not only claiming his own identity for the worse (changing him to a vampire) but also society at large. I also thought that there was sufficient attention brought to the fact that vampires were not all irredeemably cruel, but that they could also display nobility. In a lot of ways this parallels each of our own struggles with the darkness within ourselves, our pride and selfishness. But ultimately this movie teaches that through faith and love and an indomitable courage and camaraderie, we can overcome. Perhaps, like Lincoln, we have a battle to fight, and the outcome will determine the nature of our very soul.