Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, based on Tiziano Sclavi‘s horror comic, is beyond the reach of being just clunky, rather placed down in the depths of true, unfunny dread. This is a film with seemingly a lot of heart put into the production, but none of it shows through.
Brandon Routh‘s latest vehicle doesn’t aspire to be another riff of Underworld, in terms of tone or style. Kevin Munroe‘s (director behind the decent TMNT) action fantasy is going for something light and campy. There’s something admirable about attempting to do an old school “monsters bumping in the night” ’80s throwback, but it fails at even capturing that successfully.
The whole adventure lands in the uncanny valley. The performances, the monster FX, and nearly all aspects seem confused about its aspirations. Munroe and his actors don’t have a firm grasp on what they want. Some scenes the actors play the ridiculousness with a straight face, at others they nudge you so hard it almost hurts.
None of the characters come off as real people, but instead actors not knowing how to play inside the realm of cheesiness. For a prime example, Taye Diggs as the preppy and forgettable lead vampire never quite chews the scenery in a great over-the-top way, nor does he play it at all seriously. In a mess of a performance, whenever he’s about to slip into doing something wonderfully cheesy, he reverts back to playing it in the middle.
Sadly, the same goes for Routh as the titular character, who is capable of being charismatic. He was a damn fine Superman and one of the many highlights in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but as Dylan Dog, he’s given a script that makes it impossible for him to churn out a performance worthy of his possible talent. Nearly every line Routh has to deliver is laughably cringe-worthy.
From his head-beating and unfunny narration to his unnatural mannerisms, Dylan Dog is an annoying character disconnected from any sense of reality. He’s one of those heroes who thinks he’s smooth and funny, or at least the filmmakers do, but is instead fairly uninteresting. The everyman type of hero is one we don’t see enough of on the big screen nowadays, and Routh is left in the dust of doing that archetype justice.
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is simply a bad movie. It’s not clever, opting for broad, unfunny jokes. It’s not cool, with filmmaking lacking any sort of energy. The greatest reminder is a scene where Dylan Dog is taking down a string of vampire minions, very reminiscent of the moment in Constantine when its own hero took down all those half-breeds. That far, far superior film had a likable, gruff, and morally interesting protagonist in a stylishly-handled situation with genuine stakes. Dead of Night features nothing of the sort, and the same goes for the rest of the film. This is one comic adaptation that should have stayed in the hands of its creator.