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Abe's in Arms

If you're going to see a movie (or read a book, for that matter) called "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter", you have to go in with a certain set of expectations. And typically, the best you can hope for is that they are met. At the very least, you'd want the script to be written with a degree of wit and enough self-awareness to both grasp and exploit the utter preposterousness of the premise. A nice bonus would be solid acting, and characters worth giving a damn about. It is with a mix of disbelief and complete amazement that I report that this movie adaptation of the Seth Grahame-Smith novel meets those criteria and, thanks to the stellar performance of Benjamin Walker as the title, it somewhat exceeds them.

Mr. Grahame-Smith, who also wrote the screenplay, has made a habit of these historical mashups. With "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Unholy Night" (his twist on the story of the Three Wise Men), the author's career has become something of a when-will-this-lose-its-novelty act. Though I haven't read his other works, if they're half as clever as "Lincoln" I can understand the appeal. Mr. Grahame-Smith is no dummy; he's done his research. He firmly surrounds his story with just-enough historical verisimilitude to lull the audience into a false sense of literacy. Likewise, he knows his vampire lore.

The plot is pure "Buffy"-lite (Joss Whedon alum Alan Tudyk even shows up as Stephen Douglas): poor, young Abe Lincoln sees his mother murdered by a vampire and vows revenge. But first he must train under a Giles-like mentor played by Dominic Cooper (channeling Robert Downey Jr circa "Sherlock Holmes"). The vamps in Mr. Grahame-Smith's story don't adhere most of the traditional tropes. They have somehow "learned to exist in sunlight" (no explanation is given), they can disappear at random, and they are killed by silver rather than a stake. This last trait provides the excuse for Lincoln to wield a silver-tipped axe and for director Timur Bekmambetov ("Night Watch", "Wanted") to create a bunch of stylized slo-mo kill-shots.

Of course, Abe's vengeance is only the tip of the plot's blood-splattered iceberg. The real story involves nothing short of the outcome of the Civil War and the survival of humanity itself. Rufus Sewell, perhaps somewhat inevitably, plays the father of all evil and has his usual good time doing it. The fact that he gets to utter lines like "men have been enslaving each other since there were gods to blame for it" helps. Credit must be given to the filmmakers for not shying away from slavery as lesser films might have done, though the topic is given as much historical depth as anything else here.

Interestingly, so much time is spent on Abe's vampire-slaying training that when he finally rises to the presidency, the film ironically drags to a halt. Perhaps then the ridiculously over the top (even for a vampire movie) fight sequence on top of a moving train can be forgiven. Likewise, the credulity-breaking horse stampede/vampire fight is notable only for Mr. Bekmambetov's impressive ability to hold it all together - despite, or perhaps because of, the now mandatory 3D.

But at the center of it all is Benjamin Walker. It's no surprise that the actor played the young Liam Neeson in 2004's "Kinsey", he possesses both the height and some of the gravitas of the elder actor (kinda makes you wish Mr. Neeson had agreed to the role in Steven Spielberg's upcoming "Lincoln" biopic - no offense to Daniel Day-Lewis). And that's not to mention Mr. Walker's surprising resemblance to the Lincoln himself. But in a movie that promises to be about little more than Abraham Lincoln and Vampire Hunting, having Mr. Walker deliver a performance that exceeds those expectations is - to some small, ironic degree - liberating.