"Routh is a good Superman so why was his performance in Superman Returns so bad? It’s like he doesn’t show up for the role, there is no depth or history, there is just emptiness behind his eyes. Dylan Dog is pretty disappointing—I wish I could say it was better but it fell way short."
I wasn’t surprised that Dylan Dog: Dead of Night hardly made an impact on last week’s box office. It opened in only a small number of theaters but proportionally the numbers still didn’t compare leaving Dylan Dog dead in the water. Not only did the movie open to a limited release, it opened in a number of odd locations—even if you wanted to go see the movie this past weekend it was likely a long trip or too hard to find. With Thor being released tonight for a blockbuster weekend, Dylan Dog is likely to be lost entirely to theatergoers and will have a much larger audience when it hits On-Demand and the DVD racks. Anyhow, it doesn’t really matter the film itself was a flop.
Brandon Routh makes his own return to the comic book movie as Dylan Dog, private detective for the dead, and he makes an even smaller splash then in Superman Returns. Half of the hype for Dylan Dog was it’s starrer Routh, with most of the promotion and pre-movie articles playing off his botched go as the man of steel in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. In Dylan Dog we have another weak performance by Routh where I keep asking myself: What is his character's motivation? I get that he is good looking, that he has this strong confident voice, I get that he looks the part, but he just can’t pull it off. Thanks for showing up Brandon Routh maybe you could try acting like you actually care about the role (or maybe we
all have to accept that he just can’t act).
It is hard to tell (again) whether Routh is just a bad actor or if he got placed in another bad script with bad direction. The movie’s transitions are pretty sloppy; they are generally led by Routh’s narration, which tends to tell a lot more than it shows, leaving Routh and the movie pretty tame. It takes the whole movie to spit out Dylan’s backstory—it moves both too slowly and too quickly through the graphic novel history. It is organized poorly with random flashbacks coming in and out, as it is convenient for editing purposes not for informing the audience. Not that the film has any idea who its audience is as it tries to play to all ages—both those who read Dylan Dog (or are aware of graphic novels) and those who have no idea (that this is even an adaptation).
A medium to low budget for effects and make-up doesn’t help either. The action is good enough, but the make-up is reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn or Army of Darkness. Not in a good way since those movies are from the 90s and this is 2011 (and not an updated version of that make-up, the same). I saw a Dylan Dog featurette on how the filmmakers captured New Orleans and how they used the scenery to bring out the feel of the graphic novel. I guess i forgot to look or the background was forgettable. The interior sets are bad and there are a lot of interior shots in general so the beauty of New Orleans is missed.
The supporting cast is also pretty terrible except for Dylan’s dead buddy, comedy actor Sam Huntington (above). Zombie Huntington gives the movie its only bit of life (Huntington also portrayed Routh’s pal Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns). Supporting cast members: Taye Diggs is awful as the main villain, that foreign guy who endlessly pops up as a villain is awful, and the female lead Anita Briem seemed out of it for most of the movie.
Taye Diggs:
Foreign Guy Peter Stormare:
Female Lead Anita Briem:
It’s not that Brandon Routh put in a worse performance than Diggs or Briem. He does a decent acting job, but he doesn’t follow through with the character; Routh is a good Superman so why was his performance in Superman Returns so bad? It’s like he doesn’t show up for the role, there is no depth or history, there is just emptiness behind his eyes. Dylan Dog is pretty disappointing—I wish I could say it was better but it fell way short.
A couple things they should’ve could’ve done:
It should have been more like Evil Dead 2 or Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. While I was watching Dylan Dog, Routh really did remind me of Bruce Campbell and that is exactly how he should have played it. He has all the straight guy over the top style of bruce, but misses the self-loathing ugly guy comic relief. If he just had some more comic touch and more acceptance that he is a “Bruce Campbell in the 90s” actor this could have been a memorable cult film.
The movie should have gotten the R rating. If this is supposed to be some sort of cult film and not something that was made for the SyFy channel, where is all the cult action. The movie held back on language, sex, and violence—the only things that could have save it.
Dylan Dog is not a cult film—it is a comic book adaptation starring the guy who played superman in Superman Returns. It is not very good. If you have any interest or plans to go, I would still go for it, supporting this movie could result in more and more graphic comic book adaptations, (then again, maybe trashy ones, then again, I think the studios are on it). Or just rent it on DVD and give your support then…Dylan Dog: Dead of Night not worth seeing in theaters.