Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

I love movies, I consider movies and tv shows to also fall under the storytelling category, same with comics and video games. All of them are just using different mediums to arrive at the same point. Telling stories.

Movies have words in them, so I feel I'm allowed to review them in my blog. It's my blog anyways so there's nothing you can do to stop me!

This time around I'll be looking at an overlooked little gem called Dylan Dog: Dead of Night directed by Kevin Munroe and adapted from the comics Dylan Dog (that's the English translation, the comics are in Italian) by Tiziano Sclavi. I haven't had the opportunity to read the comics just yet, but I do plan to. Not having read the comics is probably why I didn't mind the movie so much, actually. I was able to appreciate the movie for what it was (of course I am probably one of the worst sticklers when it comes to comparing original source to new adaptation and decrying the injustice of it all. I'm looking at you Harry Potter).

While this poster might lead you to believe that Tom Cruise was in this movie, he was not.

The movie, though, I thought was quite entertaining. One of the biggest complaints I've heard is about Dylan's sidekick, Marcus, who is a character created just for the movie. You see, in the comics, Dylan's sidekick is a Groucho Marx impression which meant that there was no way he could have appeared in a low budget US adaptation of the comics as Groucho Marx's estate charges a ton of money to anyone in the United States who wants to use his likeness. They simply could not afford to put him in, so they replaced him with a new character.

Coming from the perspective of not having read the comics I cannot tell you how the new character Marcus stands up against the sidekick from the comics, but, I am not sure I would have enjoyed the movie as much without Marcus in there.

Sam Huntington who plays Marcus- a very reluctant zombie- made the movie for me. Marcus provided a nice counterpoint to the stoic Dylan (played by Brandon Routh of the attempted Superman Reboot fame). The film is shot in the film noir style (something else that got a lot of complaints because apparently people didn't like that Dylan narrated the entire film) which does not allow for the main actor to really spread their acting chops. They don't need to show things, they are, literally, telling you what happens. That is what goes on in film noir.

This doesn't mean that Routh is bad and a wooden block for the entire movie, he has some great one liners. I just think he got outshone by this. 

 

From what I understand, this movie is not very close to the comics at all. For one, Dylan in the movie is retired from supernaturally P I'ing and doesn't much want to keep the peace between non-livings and livings. that is until some "GRAND CONFLICT" comes along to bring him back into the game. There's also the settings, the movie is in New Orleans and the comics are in London. 

Dylan also shares some blatant characteristics with the Dresden Files and some of the costumes seem recycled from old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Taking it for what it is, though, I enjoyed it and feel it is a decent enough movie to watch and possibly share with friends. Friends who think zombies are funny.