Thursday, 16 June 2011

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night!

This is a new film based on a comic book, which I'm sorry to say I had not much knowledge of going into the film. Now that can be a good thing, as I had no preconceived notions of the character, or indeed what to expect. I think in this case, it helped. The film isn't a complete waste of time, at least.
Brandon Routh is the title character, a private dick who narrates Sam Spade style over the convoluted but entertaining plot of the warring undead.
He's joined by another Superman Returns cast off, Sam Huntington, his soon to be zombie partner. A lot of the humour misfires, but it's an entertaining couple of hours and a neat introduction to the character. It made me what to check out the comic books at least. Sadly, the originals are all Italian, and the Dark Horse reissues are doctored to remove his sidekick who bears a resemblance to Groucho Marx. There are a couple of visual nods to this character in the movie, with Marx Brother posters, etc.. While the subject of vampires and werewolves fighting isn't a new one, it certainly adds a couple of twists.
Looking into this after watching, I found another film was based on the same source (although with a different character) namely, the wonderful Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man) so there's a film that has gone to the top of my "re-watch" list.
I can imagine the fans of the original comic having the usual hissy fits that they have when ever anything is adapted to the screen, but like I said, coming in cold I thought it was a good film, if not a great one. Certainly one I'd watch again on a wet Sunday.


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