Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

July 1, 2012 - Even Honest Abe can't escape the modern-day love of all things vampire. Here, author Seth Grahame-Smith adapts his novel for the big screen to show us how Lincoln preserved the union, freed the slaves and drove away the vampires while he was at it. Lincoln is played by Benjamin Walker, whose biggest claim to fame until now seems to have been marrying the daughter of Meryl Streep. The cast also includes Rufus Sewell, Dominic Cooper, Jimmi Simpson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

As Grahame-Smith interprets history, Lincoln had his first brush with vampires as a boy when one of them killed his mother. Several years later, young Abe moves to Springfield to study law. That's where he meets Henry Sturges, a vampire out to avenge the death of his lady love by killing other vampires. Henry can't do the job himself, so he enlists the help of Abe, who chooses a silver-tipped axe as his vampire-killing weapon of choice.

In between missions, Abe finds time to court the lovely and lively Mary Todd and to embark on a career in politics. All of Abe's extracurriculars don't make Henry very happy. He says Abe needs to focus on killing vampires, especially a certain vampire named Adam. It's the battle with Adam that will ultimately forge the future of America and the vampires in it.

Overall review: ** The premise of weaving vampires into the life and times of one of America's greatest presidents is actually kind of clever. Unfortunately, the movie as a whole is not so clever. It starts out strong, but once Lincoln gets married and starts to focus on things other than fighting vampires, the film loses a lot of its, um, bite.