All Rise...

Judge David Johnson is untold. Don't tell anyone.

The Charge

Should have stayed told.

The Case

Has the time come for the iconic Universal monsters to assemble in Marvel's The Avengers-style? If so, then what better way to kick off the shenanigans with the Main Bloodsucker, Dracula himself. Here now is the studio's attempt to inject some cinematic juice into the legendary vampire, giving him an amped-up origin story and sort of turning him into a good guy.

Dracula is, of course, Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug), a renowned warrior who earned a fearsome reputation of skewering his defeated foes. There is no more feared warrior in 15th-century Transylvania than Vlad; but lately he's hung up his sword because things are good in the kingdom. That is until Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper, Captain America: The First Avenger) invokes an ancient decree, demanding 1,000 Transylvanian boys to become his soldiers. Vlad is not having any of this, especially since his own son has been conscripted.

So what is a mild-mannered impaler to do? A "fortuitous" encounter in a dank cave with a mysterious creature (Charles Dance, Strike Back) leads to a terrible deal struck: Vlad trades in his soul to become the ultimate killing machine, an undead warrior who can turn into bats and punch Turks with the force of a freight drain. Shockingly, it turns out to be a questionable decision and all manner of frightening, supernatural beasties arise as a result, forcing Dracula to choose a side and get his vamp on in a big way.

Now, normally, having been burned by dreck like Van Helsing and I, Frankenstein, I'd discount Dracula Untold as yet another migraine-inducing, CGI-fest. But Luke Evans has built a solid cache of credibility and I've come to enjoy the stuff he does, whether it's chewing scenery with Vin Diesel or decapitating orcs. Then again, Aaron Eckhart…

Yeah, no more beating around the bush: Dracula Untold is a loud, busy mess. There's a lot happening on the screen and the production quality is far from low-rent, but this is junk food moviemaking all the way through; overdone, high-calorie ear-punching and not a single atom remains in my memory not a day removed from watching it.

Well, that's not entirely true. Charles Dance pancaked with vampire make-up is a sight I soon won't forget, but beyond that Dracula Untold is as disposable as it gets.

Not that director Gary Shore doesn't try. He throws the kitchen sink (or the 15th century equivalent) at us for the full duration. There are massive battle scenes, voluminous CGI, vampires melting, acrobatic, undead mischief and a ridiculous slow-motion sword-drop reflecting the surrounding chaos. Yet all it amounts to is a pulsating sensation from behind my eyes and a sleeping feeling.

But here's the good news: the vampire hullabaloo look and sound great on the Blu-ray. The 2.40:1/1080p transfer is excellent and despite the overwrought nature of the visual effects, the CGI is solid quality and looks great in the enhanced resolution. Sound from the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track is crisp and aggressive. Extras: a feature commentary, alternate opening with commentary, deleted scenes with commentary, featurettes on Luke Evans (starring Luke Evans), an interactive map of "The Land of Dracula," four smaller behind-the-scenes segments ("Day in the Life," "Luke Evans," "Dracula Retold" and "Slaying 1,000"); and the obligatory DVD and digital copies.

I'm all for a resuscitation of Universal's beloved beasties, but there has to be a better effort. Sound and fury can only take you so far and the sight of a legion of computer-generated antagonists getting waxed by a single computer-generated protagonist is briefly titillating, but the distance from "hey, this is kind of cool" to "I'm going to take a leak, you don't have to pause the movie" is vanishingly small.

The Verdict

It's guano. Guilty.

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