Dracula Untold (2014)

(On Cable TV, August 2015) Uh oh… I’ve got a problem.  I’ve seen Dracula Untold a few weeks ago, waited a bit too long to write my review and now I’ve got almost no memories of the film.  Worse: I’m not sure if what I remember is from this film or from the Underworld series.  Yeah, it’s that bad: Generic to a fault, once again obsessed with telling the origin story of a character that frankly doesn’t need any, Dracula Untold is as dull as the modern fantasy film can be.  About half a dozen other films have trod the same ground recently and they all fall neatly into the same unremarkable mold.  The special effects don’t add anything more to a dull story, and the film has the gall to end on a coda that suggests more installments.  (Heck, according to some rumors, this is the film that’s supposed to start an interlocking “Universal Monsters” film universe.)  Frankly, the studio is going to be lucky if anyone remembers this film a week after seeing it, let along years later for a sequel.  There is little in Luke Evans’ lead performance to create much sympathy for the vampire, or to inspire much in terms of appeal.  There’s nothing else in the script either, and the dialogues as the same kind of tripe we’re been hearing in all films of that subgenre lately.  I like Dracula, but in Dracula Untold they should have taken inspiration from the Untold part of the title and made another movie instead.