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I watched it on Netflix.  A 2011 film, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is a mess from start to finish.

dylan dogA comic-based movie, Dylan Dog, Dead of Night. Dylan Dog is based on a 1986 Italian comic book series by Tiziano Sclavi.

Dylan’s director is Kevin Monroe, who directed the animated 2007 TMNT 4 (Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles). Unfortunately, that is one of the problems. It is much more difficult to direct live actors than to direct animated characters. Animated films, (unless you’re Pixar) are by nature, two dimensional.

With live actors, you need a little more “directing.”

Dylan Dog, Dead of Night blessed Monroe with two excellent actors in Taye Diggs and Sam Huntington. However, Brandon Routh needs a little more help. The only other film I had seen Routh in was Superman The Return. He is an extremely good looking actor and this is a mixed blessing.

Right now, Dylan Dog, Routh’s face is a blank sheet.

Mr. Routh needs some miles on his face and it is character that draws us. We project our own back story on how those character miles got there.His droning voice-over, meant to help us follow a confusing, muddled story, loses us in the first ten minutes. Perhaps, if Monroe, the director, knew how to work with actors, perhaps there would be a little more shading, something of interest to support the noir feel this movie attempted to create.

As Dylan, Routh was as flat as a cartoon turtle.

Knowing something about actors, having been one and worked with many as a casting director, I feel that in Dylan Dog–Dead of NightRouth is a work in progress. I hope that he continues to be cast without the burden of carrying a whole film. Also, Routh should do some theater, which is an actor’s medium. A little Tennessee Williams would do him a world of good. I freely admit I don’t know what’s going on currently in theater. I want to see what’s behind Routh’s big brown eyes.

Whatever limited appeal this film possesses comes from Sam Huntington, who was Jimmy Olsen to Routh’s Superman.

Huntington was the resident werewolf on the SyFy Channel’s Being Human. Someone described George Bush senior as that “first husband,” the one you briefly married before you settled down. in Dylan Dog–Dead of NightHuntington’s prissy “everyman” is the essence of your college roommate’s boyfriend, the one who always shows up to help you move. In Dylan Dog, Huntington is so funny as the reluctant zombie, grossed out by his zombie needs. And so he makes you forget the awkwardness of the film.

 Taye Diggs is such a compelling actor that he blows everyone else off the screen.

And one more problem. Dylan Dog–Dead of Night is full of monsters because Dylan is the “middle man” between humans and the world of monsters. Also, with most of the movie is spent with monsters, on behalf of monsters and fighting monsters, all the fight scenes shouldn’t be versions of martial arts. So, where are the claws, the fangs, the bolts of lightening, the melting people, etc.? Other than throwing punches and tossing people around, the demons, vampires and werewolves are pussies.

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Marjorie Kaye’s book blog