Is "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter" What's Wrong or Right with Movies?

****Because I had to research the film before it came out, may contain some spoilers********

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
premieres Friday June 21st.

Movies are wondrous ways to transport us to other worlds and other realities. Look at original ideas in recent years like District 9 or Inception that work, whereas some films seemed like the films were phoned in like No Strings Attached or Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon. Suspension of Disbelief is important in theater, but movies have taken plenty of liberties over the years. Dick was a good film about two teenagers who turned out to be the informant Deepthroat from the Watergate investigation or something as simple as Harold Lloyd picking up Babe Ruth in Speedy back in the 1920's. Which brings us to Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter...which seems like the dumbest idea since Greedo shooting first in the 1997 cut of Star Wars, but it coming out this weekend anyway. Will it be able to suspend our disbelief or just make everyone realize that they lost two hours that would have been better spent watching a Paul Walker movie? That's right...BETTER spent watching a Paul Walker movie.

As far as in idea goes, it's certainly original. Who would have thought of it? From the writer of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Seth Grahame-Smith), the story is told from the secret diaries of our 16th President and the tragic death of his mother not to a milk sickness, but to a dose of vampire blood. As the story progresses, Lincoln finds that slaves are not being used for labor, but as food. As a result, Lincoln decides to become an abolitionist. As the tale continues, it takes Lincoln's life all the way to the White House and through past his assassination by the vampire/actor John Wilkes Booth. To be honest, reading how the story unfolds with a great big hard-on for vampires and the history of Lincoln to meld both together into an interesting story. Grahame-Smith used several people involved in the history of the United States and the Confederacy to accomplish this feat. You have to hand it to him.

Was the Gettysburg Address really
about Vampires?

Now for the negative and there's a lot in the counter-position. The story itself is pretty generic. Vampires are everywhere and it's the same basic premise as your typical revenge movie. You know, the hero's in the family is killed by someone and the hero hates him and everyone like him. Therefore the hero kills all without mercy or discrimination. That's all well and good, but this is about Honest Abe and the story seems to use some of the moment from history, but neglect the characters they represent. Historians suggest that Mary Todd suffered from Bipolar Disorder, will that be brought up? Abraham Lincoln kills vampires without mercy- that doesn't sounds like one of the more gentler presidents. The summery excuses the cotton trade and the fight over slavery as just a vampire tactic to feed. Ummmm.... wouldn't they run out of food if they devoured all the humans?  

This story sounds like it could have been about JFK. It could have excused all of the indiscretions of the Kennedy family by insisting they were... werewolves. Will it be able to pull it off? We'll find out this week.