Went to see this with the Cosmic Wife on a rare day off yesterday. So we saw it in the early afternoon in an almost empty theater.
The Cosmic Wife liked it. She thought some of the CGI stuff was wildly overdone, but found the film to be fun and campy.
I enjoyed parts of the movie and don’t regret having seen it, but I did find the movie strangely lacking in precisely the things that it is getting celebrated for doing.
For example, the movie is getting lots of praise for treating Lincoln as a serious figure, commenting about how the movie slows down and highlights key speeches such as the Gettysburg Address. But I had more or less the opposite reaction. I found the juxtaposition of the private action hero Lincoln and the public tortured philosopher to be completely unrealistic and unbelievable.
I too found the CGI to be badly overdone. Normally I enjoy a good full-screen 3D extravaganza, but there are limits to plausibility that the movie routinely blasted through without even slowing down. I realize that’s part of the appeal of the movie, and perhaps I should just accept it as campiness, but the gore was too frequently absurdly gratuitous and the action scenes were more appropriate for a Marvel comic book hero.
Then there was the acting…
Or there was supposed to be acting.
Who the heck was that playing Mary Todd Lincoln? I am pretty sure they could have replaced her with a wind up doll. And the main vampire villain? Glower for me! More! The scene needs more glower!
There were just enough nice touches to the script and plot to keep me from just rolling my eyes throughout the movie. And it was somewhat diverting to try to spot the historical references (“there’s more than one railroad”) involved.
But in the end it was just a momentary diversion. The money and effort that went into this movie could have been better spent.
14 users commented in " Movie Review: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI don’t know the name of the actress who played Mary Todd Lincoln, but she was rather attractive and looked nothing like the real Mary Todd, who was not attractive, and quite crazy toward the end of her life. Hmm…maybe her mental state was just a ruse to hide the fact she was a werewolf. I need to google that.
I do question that vampires played any significant role in Civil War history. I think they made it all up.
I suppose I could be accused of inconsistency for grading this movie on more of a curve than my typical grading of silly season movies. But that’s in part due again to the expectations the movie supposedly has been setting.
I know that Mary Todd Lincoln was not very attractive, and of course any Hollywood actress is going to be far more attractive than she was, but I actually didn’t find the actress to be all that attractive myself. More of a generic Hollywood actress look.
but…
There is something about her that has been bugging the heck out of me since I saw the movie. She reminds me very strongly of some actress that I keep seeing in my mind but can’t put a name on. All I know is that I keep seeing a particular scene in my mind where an actress that looks very much like this actress was in some scene where she was drinking a bit and gossiping with some other young women.
But I can’t figure out what the scene is or who the actress was.
It’s driving me nutzo!
I recognize her. She was in a film called ‘Sky High’ and recently she appeared in a remake of ‘The Thing’. She was also in a movie called ‘Scott Pilgrm vs. the World’. Okay, I looked her up. Her name is Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I think she’s cute.
Yep, cute…
http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/mary_elizabeth_winstead_01.jpg
Yes…rather pretty…
Cute indeed, but other than being cute, I don’t see anything that makes her memorable.
Did you check the link. I think you need to get your testosterone levels checked.
We have had this discussion before, but I still don’t think you understand what I mean.
The world is swimming with beautiful people. I see stunningly beautiful females all the time. More and more what gets my attention is some sort of uniqueness, some attribute or even body language that stands out. Beauty in and of itself is common in Hollywood. Yes, she is hot. But no hotter than ten thousand Hollywood minimum wage acrtress wanna-bes who probably can act just as well (or better… I was not impressed with her acting).
So yeah, she’s a hotty, but I see hotties every day at Walmart, with the added benefit of seeing them up close and in real life.
For my Hollywood expectations I want more. If acting skills aren’t compelling (and in this case they weren’t ), then I prefer a distinctive look.
You see hotties at Walmart? Well, that proves our idea of what’s hot is radically different.
BTW, you said: “I actually didn’t find the actress to be all that attractive myself…”
And then you said: “Yes, she’s hot.”
I was just commenting on her appearance, not other unique qualities that simply cannot be evaluated in a photo.
I think you just like to argue.
“All that attractive” is a relative term. I don’t consider her “all that attractive” in a Hollywood starlet perspective. Just based on this movie (the only thing I’ve seen her in) I found her to be a pretty generic plug-n-play actress. That’s all I meant. Pretty, but not particularly distinctive, and nothing that sets her acting apart from your average deodorant actress.
Oh, and hotties at Walmart? Absolutely I do. Regularly. Of course I see a lot of ugly folks too, but it’s a rare trip to Walmart where I don’t at least get neck whiplash on one aisle or another…
Remember, this is Colorado. Colorado has the highest percentage of hot bodies of any state in the nation. Some of them are going to be at Walmart…
She’s definitely not a great actress, but she is a very attractive brunette female. That is all…
I’m having a hard time imagining the website: ‘Walmart Hotties’. Heh. It probably already exists…
I shouldn’t single out Walmart, what I really mean is that I see hot females all over the place all the time. I can’t drive home without getting distracted by hot chicks on the bicycle trail that goes alongside the highway. I see them at Hobby Lobby, King Soopers, the movie theater, the mall, walking in to work in the morning…
I have come to realize that there are a freaking lot of hot chicks in this world.
But even then, the ones who catch my eye are usually the ones with some sort of body language that appeals to me, or else some really striking physical attribute.
But even then, there’s a lot of them out there. Not just in Hollywood.
Heh… even if that means my taste is somehow less discriminating than yours Dadman, I think I prefer it that way. I like seeing hot chicks everywhere….
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