Just finished "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." I knew that Timur Bekmembatov (hereinafter "Becky" as Morgan Freeman calls him) was involved but I didn't realize he directed it, but DAMN it's a real step down style-wise from Wanted, which is so funny because I'm sure that the budget was higher than Wanted had. And the style of it felt VERY tv-movie as well. I'm a little heartbroken, to be honest.
It's not fair to compare this Lincoln to the "proper" Daniel Day-Lewis portrayal (which I admit I haven't seen) but there's something "Abe" that's missing, probably because he's playing Abe as a character and not "Abe," if that makes sense. And while I love Mary Elizabeth Winstead, I kept thinking she made an odd-choice of portraying depressive Mary Todd Lincoln as SMILING all the time, but then there's the time jump. She didn't really get to be crazy, though.
I feel like the movie should have played more with the biopic conventions, in the same way that Walk Hard did. I wonder if part of that is Timur's extent of film-knowledge and genre-saaviness... perhaps there needed to be more adaptation-ness done to the script, to suit the story for screens. Because apparently the book is quite good, but between this and Dark Shadows might point out a weakness for the medium that Seth Graeme-Smith has... and I only say this because being able to overcome an issue like that is being aware of it, and I HOPE he gets better with the film adaptations because the dude has some crazy ideas.