'Dracula Untold' drags, but has some cool bat-effects

Twilight's vampires did enough damage to the undead. But at times Dracula Untold flirts with dullness so much that it might as well just stick a stake in the heart of Bram Stoker's legacy.

But at least Luke Evans doesn't sparkle like the vampires in Twilight.

His Dracula turns the iconic villain into a Transylvanian action hero in the new horror-fantasy film (** out of four; rated PG-13; opens in select theaters Thursday and nationwide Friday). But before he unleashes his power, Dracula Untold drags like a heavy coffin.

Instead of being the Bela Lugosi romantic type, Evans' character is based on the real legend of Vlad the Impaler, though real-life Vlad probably didn't have a posse of brooding bros or a growly Batman voice (though he is literally a bat-man — more on that later).

It's 1414 and Prince Vlad, a former Turkish slave, is enjoying a period of peace with his people until a bunch of Turkish scouts go missing near Broken Tooth Mountain. (It is fittingly named.) The sultan Mehmed (Dominic Cooper), an old pal of Vlad's, comes sniffing around and wants 1,000 Transylvanian boys to fill out his Turk army or else.

Vlad, not wanting to give his son up to slavery, makes a deal with the Master Vampire (Charles Dance of Game of Thrones) to gain extraordinary abilities in order to keep his wife Mirena (Sarah Gadon) and people safe. One caveat: While his powers last for three days before he turns back into a mortal, there's no coming back from going full vamp if he gives in to his extreme thirst for blood.

Director Gary Shore makes his feature debut and whips up some effects-laden battles where Vlad not only can turn himself into a bunch of bats but also can control seemingly millions of the little guys to crash down on invading armies and shake the earth.

Sharknado? Pffft. One hasn't lived until witnessing the glory of a Batnado.

Those Game of Thrones-style epic sequences balance out the weak dialogue, which switches between cliché fantasy lines and outtakes from a Die Hard script: After Vlad wipes out a bunch of Turks, he walks off the battlefield with a swagger and a one-liner: "Negotiations failed." Mileage may vary on how much old-school Dracula fans want their favorite guy to be John McClane with fangs.

Evans does what he can and exudes enough charisma to make his Vlad pop at times, especially in one sequence that couldn't be more obvious in cementing Dracula Untold as the start of a Marvel Studios-style shared universe of movies.

Does that make Evans the Monster Avengers' answer to Tony Stark? Who knows, but at least he can rock a serious Batnado.