Dylan Dog

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

On TV, the key to good paranormal detection is to blow arbitrary sounds completely out of proportion, whilst bathed in the murky glow of night-vision.

Thankfully, the supernatural dick in this horror movie leaves the scare tactics up to the monsters.

A retired mediator for the creatures of the night that populate New Orleans in disguise, private eye Dylan Dog (Brandon Routh) finds himself pulled back in to the shadows when a powerful vampire (Taye Diggs) threatens to reawaken an evil entity that will enslave humanity.

In addition to saving the world, and quelling a pending vampire war with the werewolves, Dylan must also prepare his recently bitten partner Marcus (Sam Huntington) for life as a zombie.

Based on the Italian comic book, Dylan Dog is a poorly acted, sadly crafted, schizophrenic hodge-podge of screwball comedy and low-rent horror.

Besides, all the dames that hire paranormal detectives have piranha-toothed vaginas. (Red Light)

Let me first say that 90% of the people who will come to this page should ignore most of the bad reviews for this film. After looking through them, they seem to all have one thing in common - anger that this doesn't seem like a faithful adaptation.

I'm willing to bet that most of the US audience for this film has never read the Dylan Dog comics, and, like me, had never heard of Dylan Dog before hearing the title of this movie.

Now, putting aside the negativity that comes from fans of the source material, I think most fans of the genre will like this movie. It is very in the vein of things like Joss Whedons Buffy & Angel as well as sharing some similarities to things like Constantine and the Dresden Files book series. Let's be honest, this is urban fantasy. Most people know if they enjoy the genre or not.

The film does a decent job of keeping a film noir tone, and using noir tropes to it's advantage. Routh is good as the title character, doing a nice job of trying to be the tired detective without being a weary stereotype. Sam Huntington is great as Marcus, who I think ends up stealing the movie because he really has the lions share of memorable moments.

Yes, chances are you'll figure out the who done it before the movie reveals it, and you'll figure out impending double crosses from the moment characters are introduced. That's the danger of being a genre film, but it doesn't detract from the fact that the movie is really fun, and very funny in quite a few places.

If you like things like Buffy, Constantine or Harry Dresden, give this movie a chance cause I think you will probably end up liking it.

Brandon who? The name's Brandon Routh, the former fashion model who was supposed to save the Superman series by playing the caped superhero in 2006. Alas, despite positive reviews for the Bryan Singer directed movie, the planned sequel for Superman Returns never materialized. What happened to the chiseled good looker? He went on to play supporting roles in several TV series (he had a 12 episode stint on Chuck) and movies (2008's Zack and Miri Make a Porno being the most memorable), before landing himself on this project, which, according to the movie poster, is based on "one of the world's most popular comics".

Err, doesn't that accolade belong to the gang from Marvel?

Jokes aside, Routh plays the titular Dylan Dog, a supernatural private eye who seeks out monsters to bring peace to New Orleans. With a zombie as his assistant, the ace detective must come face to face with vampires and werewolves so that the world can be safe once more.

Research tells us that the horror comic series this movie is based on originated in Italy, where a good one million copies are sold each month since its publication in 1986. The filmmakers have taken liberty to shift the setting of the movie from London to New Orleans, and replacing the sidekick character with an undead assistant due to copyright issues. So here, we have Routh donning the comic character's signature red shirt, black jacket and blue jeans to hunt those monsters down.

Truth be told, the dashing star does look good in the movie with his 1.9 meter frame. The Iowa born actor has the quality of a leading man (check out those sculpted facial features and broad shoulders), but charisma alone is apparently not good enough to make Routh a credible actor. There is a lack in his character portrayal, and it is rather unfortunate that his acting was as dead as the creatures he has to battle. The tiresome voiceovers do not help to sustain our interest in the character either.

Laughs come in the form of Sam Huntington (he played Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen in 2006's Superman Returns, which explains his pairing with Routh in this movie), who plays the under-appreciated friend who becomes a zombie. The endearing actor gets some of the best moments in the movie, including one which has him going to a zombie support group so that he can come to terms with his newfound status as an undead. His presence in the otherwise dreary movie provides the much needed perks.

Regrettably, Huntington alone isn't enough to save the 108 minute production from being predictably lackluster. His co stars include Anita Briem (Journey to the Center of the Earth) who tries her best to take on the role of an attractive client, Peter Stormare (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) who tries his best to look threatening as a werewolf and Taye Diggs (Chicago) who tries his best to send shivers down our spines as a vampire. Maybe it's the B grade movie feel of the production, or maybe it's just the unsurprising plot developments, but we just cannot find ourselves being impressed by the ensemble cast.

Special effects aren't too shoddy in this Kevin Munroe (his other feature film credit is the disappointing TMNT) directed movie, but we can't help but feel that this is one movie best played on late night television.

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I had never heard of the comic book or anything about the character before watching this movie. Now after watching it,I have no desire to know anything more of it. This movie is like a joke that thinks everything dramatic they do is original,when it is no more than a copy of thousands of movies before hand. It's predictable and HORRIBLY acted by the main actor and except for the comic relief of his best friend it's a snore-fest. I actually fell asleep about 75% into the movie and had to go back to watch the last 25% just so I could see if I missed anything great....I did not. Looking for a good scary monster movie? Don't waste your time on this one. It doesn't even rank bad enough to be so bad that you have to watch it. It's just bad.

Poor Brandon Routh. After snagging the iconic role as the Man of Steel, it's a little bit unfortunate that Bryan Singer's Superman Returns fell short of the studio's expectations, and he no longer plays a part in any future installments, starting with Zack Snyder's reboot. No matter, after all with that build and chiselled good looks, one can waltz into another superhero franchise, isn't it?

Unfortunately, Dylan Dog is an Americanized version of the Italian horror graphic novel character, and as far as adaptations of comics from another culture goes, this one hits the mark in expectations, where the source material got extremely dumbed down, its unique selling points dissolved into mediocrity and bastardized. Save for the trademarked coat and red shirt, director Kevin Munroe's vision of this character became somewhat of a generic monster hunter type of film, though a plus point would be its treatment and narrative style in full detective noir, with Routh's Dylan Dog being reluctantly pulled from retirement by his client Elizabeth (Anita Briem) to investigate the death of her father, as well as that of his assistant Marcus (Sam Huntington).

This investigative trip of course introduces the audience unfamiliar with the Dylan Dog mythos that the undead, from vampires to werewolves to zombies, all have hidden human identities and walk the Earth quite undetected, with a truce in place to keep the peace and Dylan being the only trusted human for the monsters to go to when someone crosses the line or breaks the peace. There's a little backstory here on Dylan's origins and the reasons behind his forced retirement, but nothing truly to wow or build upon any depth to the character, which is potential that's wasted in giving Dylan more meat in background, becoming instead just another human detective on his rounds.

The thrill factor of course is the make up and effects in having the monsters look their nasty part, although they aren't something that hasn't been seen before on screen. Action sequences are ho-hum, with the nagging feeling that the story by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer can't quite decide how to empower Dylan, making him become as powerful as Routh's previous comic book outing in at least the indestructibility factor, while equipped with some funky weapons that we should see more of. And the trailer while pretty tacky, actually summed up the entire plot, having reveal too much and letting out that the filmmakers aren't quite confident with their end product, and the marketers a little bit clueless on how to sell this film, hence its verbosity.

While Brandon Routh has a limited acting range, his physique actually suited him fine here and basically that was all that mattered, since you aren't going to remember much about his rather bland performance. Perhaps it's also because Sam Huntington, his co-star from Superman Returns as well as he played Jimmy Olsen then, scored much of the flak in this film being the very whiny assistant, whose wisecracks and constant shouting get onto your nerves, and you wonder when his character could shut up if at all for five minutes. The Marcus character doesn't exist in the books simply because of a potential copyright tussle if what was deemed as a Grucho Marx lookalike got interpreted, but this modern replacement was as unfunny as he was unnecessary in a lot of ways.

Don't expect this monster squad outing to be too cerebral. It's filled with corny one liners involving various body parts, and in essence is a poor man's cousin to Men in Black, replacing aliens in our midst with that of monsters roaming around. If only it had stuck more faithfully to its source, then it could have been something quite unique.