That the so called “critics” at Rotten Tomatoes screws this movie over is not really a surprise. Said “critics” are usually out of sync with both my opinions and the opinions of most of the viewers which can be seen again from the fact that these people give this movie a 23% rating whereas the actual viewers give it a 60% rating. At lot of “purists” also seem to take a disliking to this movie. Well, the movie is named Dracula Untold so it should be no surprise that the story would be a new one.
Personally I found this movie quite enjoyable. Yes it is not the original Dracula story but it is not straying too far from the basic origins and it is really a quite decent story unlike some of the disastrous Hollywood rewrites. The original story claims that Dracula became a vampire during his battles with the Turks and this movie picks up on that and tells the story of how that happened. Unlike most (all?) Dracula movies, Dracula is not really the bad guy but rather the inverse and the movie tells a story about sacrifices and Dracula’s quest to keep some of his humanity, moral and sanity.
It would not be a Dracula movie without some blood flowing and this movie delivers without overdoing it. Actually the actual bloodsucking stuff is quite played down until the end of the movie. There are a fair amount of fights against the Turks (who are the real bad guys in this movie) though and blood as well as various body parts no longer attached to their proper places does float around quite a bit. The special effects are not forgotten and I quite liked the bat swarms that Dracula commanded during the final fights against the Turks.
I found Luke Evans performance as the prince and unwilling Dracula to be quite good. The rest of the characters were also well played. I am sure that none of them will be nominated for Oscars due to their part in this movie but I have nothing negative to say about their performance.
On the whole I found this movie quite enjoyable and I definitely disagree with all the people blasting it. I did also quite like the last couple of scenes in modern time at the end which teased of a follow up movie. I would definitely like to see that happen.