The best thing about Netflix is watching movies you normally wouldn’t find anywhere else to watch. Sure this was probably tucked away on some dusty shelf at Blockbuster, but you would have missed it. Arn : The Knight Templar is a film from Sweden and is basically the Swedish version of Braveheart. That can’t be a bad thing can it? There’s plenty of English, but you will need to have the subtitles enabled for the combination of Arabic and of course Swedish that is thrown in at different times.
The story follows Arn Magnusson, the son of a high-ranking Swedish nobleman who is educated in a Monestary. One of his teachers is a Knights Templar who sees more than just a Holy Man in young Arn. He is raised to fight, and perhaps one day serve his God in The Holy Land. Enter the love interest who is betrothed to another yet falls in love with Arn. What follows is a 20 year sentence for each, that will test their strength and love for each other. The film runs just over 2 hours, but has a solid pace and will keep your interest. Bonus appearance is probably the only face many Americans will recognize is Stellan Skarsgårdwho plays the part of Arn’s Uncle. Skarsgard, of course is the father of True Blood‘s Eric Northman, Alexander Skarsgård, and also the lesser known Gustaf Skarsgård, who plays Floki in the History Channels hit Vikings.
In a high school in Seattle, in the bayou of Bon Temps, on television and the movies. America loves Vamps! And Production Companies love making money off of what America loves. So the market gets flooded with one subject (now Zombies) until we beg them to stop. When I originally heard of this movie, my first reaction was, “Ok, looks like it could be fun…I can dig an alternate universe where ol’ Honest Abe is a Vamp Killer”. Not sure why I didn’t rush to the movies and shell out $20 at the time, but after watching this, I have to admit I made a good decision. Let’s watch the Original Trailer again.
That looks pretty badass. The problem is, a good trailer does not make a good movie. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not an awful movie. It’s worth watching for sure, if you are stuck inside, on a rainy day, alone, with absolutely nothing else to do.
The story is different, it is an alternate universe. Vampires exist and they live in the South and love slavery! I knew it! All along I thought slaves were for pickin’ cotton, and doing jobs that evil white southern folk had no desire to do. Turns out I was wrong! Slaves were for eating! Picking cotton and working fields was just a side job for their Vamp overlords. Abe’s mother was killed by a Vamp and his longing for revenge gets him involved with professional Vampire Hunter, Henry. One thing that stands out in this alternate universe, is that in the 1800’s these people wore awesome shades! Cue the 80’s training montage!
After some hardcore training, which I’m sure included some P90X scenes that found the cutting room floor, Awesome Abe can slice through Pine trees with a single blow. He also jacked into the matrix database and installed the Tai Chi, Jujustsu, and Drunken Monkey Kung Fu programs. Off to Springfield on the back of a donkey, Abe comes to town like a Buddhist Monk…with a silver tipped axe.
Working at the grocery store during the day, cutting heads off of Vamps during the night, life is good. The movie however goes to the ridiculous. A fight during a huge horse stampede, complete with jumping from horse to horse reminded me of the swinging with monkeys scene in the tragic Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull. If I was at a theatre, I would have walked out. I had to remind myself for probably the 100th time, that this is an alternate universe, and is supposed to be over the top. It’s a hard lesson for me, one that I learned while watching True Lies with the Arnold. There’s a scene in True Lies with a gun tumbling down some stairs that Jamie Lee Curtis dropped…it kills like 15 henchmen. I died a little that day.
Fast forward the rest of the film, (not really, unless you want) to the climatic scene on the top of a train. I love CGI, and what it allows filmmakers to produce, but sometimes it is the absolute killer to modern movies. How many ways can we make a fight on top of a train cool? Almost fall off numerous times, check. A tag team battle using only one axe, and lots of spinning in the air, check. How about a huge wooden bridge on fire and blowing up as the train falls into the cavern? YES! It’s an alternate universe.
Ok, so time for a rating. I give Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter 32 out of 120.
Alright, we’re not a food blog here at White Devil, but we do love food. When something is done right, we want to make sure we give credit where it is due. A couple of nights ago we stopped into a local Long John Silver’s restaurant to pick something up quick. I remembered hearing about their new onion rings, and honestly anything had to be better than their fries.
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