Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is the best movie about that topic we are ever likely to see unless there is a sequel, which is not probable because at the end, the Lincolns are on their way to the theater. It’s also more fun than I expected. Yes, Reader, I went expecting to sneer.

The story begins with young Abe seeing his mother murdered by a vampire. He swears revenge and years later gets roaring drunk while standing at a bar next to Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who schools him in vampire-killing and explains that it is a calling, requiring great dedication and avoiding distractions like marriage.

In an early scene, Lincoln tries to shoot a vampire but of course that won’t work because they’re already dead. Then what? “Well,” he tells Henry, “I used to be pretty good at rail splitting” This line got only a few chuckles from the audience because the movie carefully avoids appearing funny.

Lincoln’s weapon of choice becomes an axe with a silver blade, which he learns to spin like a drum major’s baton. That he carries this axe around with him much of the time may strike some as odd. I was reminded uncannily of Buford Pusser, walking tall and carrying a big stick.

Against Henry’s advice, Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) marries Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and soon we’re into his days in the White House where he discovers that vampires are fighting on the side of the South.

This does seem strange since they should be equal opportunity bloodsuckers but there you have it. Still with him is his childhood friend Will Johnson (Anthony Mackie), a free black man whose mistreatment helped form Lincoln’s hatred of slavery. Also still at his side is Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson), who hired him in his Springfield general store; Johnson and Speed join Lincoln in Civil War strategy sessions and are his principal advisers, roles overlooked by history.

The film, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Seth Grahame Smith based on his novel, treats all this with an admirable seriousness that may be the only way it could possibly work. The performances are earnest and sincere, and even Adam (Rufus Sewell), the American leader of the Vampire Nation, doesn’t spit or snarl too much. It regrettably introduces but does not explain Vadoma (Erin Wasson), a statuesque woman who is several decades ahead of time in her taste for leather-fetish wear. Are vampires kinky? I didn’t know.

We don’t go to “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” for a history lesson, but there is one anomaly I can’t let pass. On the first day of fighting at Gettysburg, the Union suffers a defeat so crushing that Lincoln considers surrender. Because the Confederate troops all vampires are impervious not only to lead bullets, cannon fire and steel blades but also to having their heads ripped off and their bodies burned to ashes, which is how you’re supposed to kill a vampire. They also have this disquieting way of disappearing and rematerializing.

Over breakfast, Lincoln shares his despair with Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and observes that traditional weapons are no more effective against these creatures than well, than this fork! As he stares at it, he realizes it’s silver. Vampires can be killed by silver weapons. He’s proved that with his ax-twirling.

Now disregard the timeline for a moment. Following his realization, Lincoln immediately sends out orders activating every resource in Washington: wagonload after wagonload of silver must be collected; brought here; melted down; cast into bayonets; bullets; cannon balls.

Then we see him accompanied by Speed (Jimmi Simpson) and Johnson (Anthony Mackie), who I could swear were members of Lincoln’s Cabinet aboard some sort of weapons train headed back down to Gettysburg. It is night again, so evidently all this has taken less than a day.

Never mind. What happens next is an honestly thrilling action sequence in which the vampires duke it out with Abe on top of the speeding train as it races toward an extremely flammable wooden bridge that has been ignited by the dastardly Vadoma (Erin Wasson? Really?). It’s absurd but exciting stuff, competently edited and generously outfitted with special effects. Somehow Benjamin Walker and his co-stars are even convincing well, as convincing as such goofiness can be.

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” doesn’t have anything useful to say about Abraham Lincoln, slavery, the Civil War or much of anything else. (Blink and you may miss a late breaking revelation that Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad was essentially responsible for winning the war for the North.) But it doesn’t claim to have anything useful to say about those things. What it does promise and, for the most part, deliver is a fun summer movie in which Honest Abe gets to do all sorts of excitingly impossible stuff.

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