Over the last decade or so, Hollywood has found that movies based on comic books are big business. Some of them are huge blockbusters, some aren't. But the vast majority of them still make plenty of money. But these are the ones based on American comics. The ones based on international comics are not only relatively rare, but they don't really do that hot either. Case in point: the 2010 movie Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. Based on the popular Italian comic series created by Tiziano Schlavi in 1986, the movie crashed and burned at the box office. But since I'm a sucker for comic book movies and have a friend who'd recommended it to me, I figured I'd at least rent the DVD from Netflix and see if its financial failure was a sign of the movie's quality.
Meet Dylan Dog (Brandon Routh), a New Orleans private detective who once specialized in cases involving the supernatural. But after his wife was killed by vampires, Dylan gave up paranormal investigations for more traditional ones. Dylan is so committed to putting the weird and macabre cases behind him that when Elizabeth Ryan (Anita Briem) attempts to hire him to hunt down the werewolf that killed her father, he promptly shoots her down. But when his devoted assistant and friend Marcus (Sam Huntington) is killed by another creature for what he believes are reasons similar to why Elizabeth's father died, he reconsiders and takes the case.
With a resurrected Marcus, who finds the transition into being a zombie a difficult one, by his side, Dylan's investigation takes him into the darker corners of New Orleans. He quickly discovers that Elizabeth's father's murder was connected to the "Heart of Belial," an ancient relic said to bestow immense power upon whoever wields it. Continuing to follow a trail of clues, he discovers that high-ranking vampire Vargas (Taye Diggs) is actively seeking the Heart of Belial, seeking to extend the reach of his power. And with many people after it, Dylan has to either find it himself or make sure the wrong person doesn't find it first.
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night bombed at the box office and has all but faded into obscurity since its release four years ago. I can see why, beyond the fact that the character of Dylan Dog is, in my experience, pretty obscure in America. And as far as the movie itself goes, precious little of it is actually memorable, and the whole thing has a feel that it should have been produced for the Sci-Fi Channel instead of being theatrically released. It has a weird sheen of "direct-to-video B-movie" all over it. But it's not a particularly bad movie either. At its very worst, it's not a bad way to spend a boring afternoon.
The movie was the second feature film directed by Kevin Munroe, who'd helmed the animated TMNT in 2007. And for someone with no live-action filmmaking experience that I'm otherwise aware of, Munroe holds it together well. The only catch is that he apparently can't decide whether he wants to make a cheesy monster movie or a noir-oriented detective story that just happens to feature supernatural creatures. He tries to have it both ways, and we end up with a silly movie that's just kinda there. Monroe, to his credit, does keep the movie flowing. It may not be a smart movie or the most original movie, but it's certainly lively. He does make sure that the movie is energetic and doesn't stick around for the dumb parts to really cause a problem.
But the script, however, is actually pretty dumb. While they do give the movie a certain sardonic humor to it, writers Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer appear to have just cobbled together elements from other vampire fiction to make up their script. Watch Dylan Dog: Dead of Night and you'll see bits cribbed from True Blood, Blade, and the Underworld movies. Even after that, the plot still isn't anything you haven't seen before, and the characters are mostly generic and unremarkable. And while I've never read or even actually seen any of the Dylan Dog comic, so I can't really compare the movie to the source material, but I'm sure the comics don't really resemble the movie. (Though I am aware that the Dylan Dog from the comics has a Groucho Marx impersonator for a sidekick instead of a zombie, so take that however you'd like it...)
The cast, meanwhile, is very hit or miss as well. Anita Briem is forgettable, and Taye Diggs doesn't really contribute much. On the other hand, Peter Stormare is decent enough, while Sam Huntington is rather funny as the movie's comic relief. But Brandon Routh is the best part of the movie. He's a likable, charismatic actor, and I've enjoyed him in the other movies I've seen him in. Routh's performance in Dylan Dog: Dead of Night proves to be no different. He plays Dylan as straight laced but with a sarcastic sense of humor, and it's largely because of him and his rapport with Huntington that the movie is enjoyable.
So yeah, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is one of those movies. It's barely mediocre at best, but it has a certain charm to it. I found it hard to actually hate the movie, simply because I thought it was too goofy to dislike. That cheesy B-movie feeling I mentioned earlier is largely what I liked about it, because the movie honestly doesn't have a lot else going for it. It's a mostly forgettable movie that works as perfectly disposable entertainment, and really, that isn't always a bad thing. Just don't expect to actually remember anything about Dylan Dog: Dead of Night should you actually see it. If it hadn't been for the notes I took while preparing for this review, I wouldn't have remembered anything about it.
Final Rating: **½
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