Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Time Out New York Project: Issue #866, June 28-July 4, 2012
★☆☆☆☆
Dir. Timur Bekmambetov. 2012. R. 105mins. Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
So it seems our 16th President — that’d be “Abraham Fucking Lincoln” (Walker) — wasn’t only a leader and emancipator. He was also an ax-wielding hunter of literally bloodsucking Southerners who mired our country in civil war. This ludicrous CGI extravaganza, based on the comic horror novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, can stand proudly beside the best-worst of Ed Wood and Uwe Boll. Come for a stampeding-horse action sequence that might make John Ford rise from his grave in fury; stay for the moment when doting wife Mary Todd (Winstead) implores her hubby to hurry up or they’ll be late for the theater. And otherwise distract yourself with the film’s consistently flabbergasting attempts to turn Honest Abe into the 19th-century Neo. Four score and seven years a-whoa!—Keith Uhlich
