30 Days of Night

The Good:
Visually it stayed very close to the amazing art that Ben Templesmith brought to the graphic novel. This was important to me because the art was such a huge part of what made the graphic novel so good. It was nice to see that they took Templesmith's interpretation of vampires and brought it to life in 3D.

They didn't play with the story TOO much. But really - this is more a compliment to Steve Niles who wrote the graphic novel than to the movie itself. When I stumbled across the graphic novel I was amazed that someone hadn't come up with the idea before - it seemed too perfect. There ARE places in Alaska that are dark for 30 days solid out of the year. Of course vampires would go there. Of course.

They honestly could not have cast the main vampire (Marlow) any better than with Danny Huston. His mannerisms, the way he spoke, his slightly jarred movement - straight out of the comic and everything that made the illustrated Marlow as intensely creepy as he was translated beautifully onto the screen.

I was so so so so glad they didn't tinker too much with the Trapper (Beau Brower) too much. He was a badass character in the novel, and he was badass in the film. Kudos to Mark Boone Junior for a part played to perfection.

The Bad:
I'm sure it's tainted by my dislike of Josh Hartnett, however I felt that The Sheriff came across as both too weak and wishy-washy and as much stronger than the comic had him ever become. There was a delicate balance written into the character that didn't translate from book into film. Whether this is the fault of the actor of the direction I cannot objectively say as I do not like Hartnett as an actor and that could taint my opinion in this case.

I felt like they made Stella (played acceptably by Melissa George) weaker than she was in the comic and less of a force than she should have been. Anyone who read the comic (SPOILER ALERT) knows that the heroine of this story was truly Stella, and yet the movie makes her out to be almost an auxiliary character. I didn't appreciate that at all.

Over All:
While there were things I liked, as a whole I felt like this was a piss poor watered down version of an amazing story. The visceral fear and anger and other emotions that were easily brought out by the comic just weren't there for me with the film. I felt that an extreme disservice was done to an amazingly original interpretation of a centuries old vampire tale with this movie. If you want something genuine, read the comic - skip the film.