Dylan Dog is a supernatural thriller that cribs from a lot of sources, feels like a lot of other things and never quite manages to bring it all together properly but it does, impossibly, manage to entertain and provide a fun distraction on a hot afternoon.

Adapted from an Italian comic I had never heard of before the movie, Dylan Dog tells the story of Dylan (Brandon Routh), a human appointed to arbitrate conflicts in the supernatural community, who is pulled out of retirement to solve a werewolf related murder. The case goes deeper than he he expected and dredges up a past he walked away from the supernatural to forget and costs him the life of his partner Marcus (Sam Huntington). Luckily, depending on your perspective, Marcus was bitten by a zombie and returns as a zombie himself. With their client (Anita Briem) in tow, the two of them find themselves on the wrong side of a pack of werewolves led by Gabriel (Peter Stormare) and a vampire clan led by Vargas (Taye Diggs) the latter of which has serious beef with Dylan for the event that led him to quit the life and go into business as a mundane private investigator.

As I mentioned, I have never read the original comics so I don’t know how faithful this is or how the quality compares. I know that Routhe looks just like the character and is wearing the same outfit so that is about as much as I can say about accuracy. That being said, I can tell you that the storyline, details and many of the beats will be familiar with anyone who watches this kind of movie a lot. The film feels like if Constantine (the movie not Hellblazer), Angel, Hellboy, True Blood and a tiny bit of the Maltese Falcon had a drunken night of regret and this was the result. This doesn’t make this unwatchable but it does feel very derivative and familiar.

The production values feel very much in line with Angel or Buffy the Vampire Slayer if they were given a higher budget. The monsters are generally practical for better or worse but most of the time it is for the better. There is something nice about watching the hero fighting something that is actually there even if there is a little bit of ‘guy in a suit’ cheesiness thrown into the mix. Cheesiness is sort of the order of the day for this movie but it is a good natured cheesiness that never really over takes the whole production. The effects are ultimately pretty good. They aren’t on par with Hellboy but end up better than anything on TV.

The tone of the film is probably its biggest problem mostly because it doesn’t ever seem to settle on anything. It isn’t funny enough to be called a comedy and isn’t scary enough for a horror movie nor does it have enough action to be an action movie. Dylan Dog just never finds its sweet spot from a balance perspective. The result is a film that feels off most of the way through and that makes it hard to just settle in and enjoy yourself. That being said, the material is strong enough that it does its job well enough even in the face of this issue so long as you are pre-disposed to this sort of material.

The writing from a dialogue perspective is pretty good. It is aiming for a hadboiled Raymond Chandler mixed with some Elmore Leonard feel and generally succeeds. There are occasional missed notes where it comes off sounding silly but generally the writing is good. Because of the tone issue it is hard to know what to expect from moment to moment so for the dialogue to be sufficiently snappy and clever in a consistent way is quite an achievement.

The performances could make or break the material and luckily for the film the performances are generally good. Stormare is pretty daffy as Gabriel but like so many of his performances it is the quirks that make him work. You hire him to do exactly that and it fits the bill pretty well here. Sam Huntington is spot on as Marcus and serves as the audience surrogate who needs things explained to him so we get to find out what is going on without feeling like we are just being handed exposition. His reactions to things happening to him are priceless and he is a real high point of the movie. Taye Diggs is always a joy to watch and he looks like he is having some fun here but he carries it off without going over the top. Stormare’s antics would not work out for Diggs and it is good that they didn’t try to take him in that direction.

I like Brandon Routh a lot and I think he has gotten sort of a raw deal with the whole Superman thing. I am glad he is getting a starring role here, although given its somewhat limited audience I am a bit concerned about him getting another one. I think Routh did a very good job here and he handled the action scenes with aplomb. That being said, I also think he was pretty badly miscast. As mentioned above, Routh looks a lot like the character from pictures of the comics I’ve seen but the character as written in the script seems to call for someone who is burnt out and broken down at the beginning of the movie. Routh looks young and fresh faced like he has never known pain or hardship a day in his life. This kind of hamstrings the moment when he puts on his signature suit and coat to get back on the job because he look just like he did before but now in a red button up and a black overcoat. It was a bit hard to buy all the business about him being a hardened detective because he looks so fresh faced and nice. This isn’t his fault and is a good thing for him personally but I would have liked to have seen some more pain behind his eyes. Again, he did a very good job with what he had but I am just not sure it was the right material for him.

Conclusion [7.5 out of 10]

So I liked this movie at the end of the day and I would watch it again for sure but it is not going to be for everyone. If you are like me and you like Buffy, Angel, True Blood, Hellboy and Constantine then you will probably dig this movie. If you don’t share that sensibility then you should stay pretty far away. I feel like this movie is going to tank pretty hard in the theater but I think it will find life on DVD. That is where it belongs too. This is not a big summer movie on par with the heavy hitting blockbusters and I am surprised to find it opening on the same weekend as Fast Five. This is the sort of movie that is typically released in late August. Regardless, I recommend it only if you are into the films I mentioned earlier and even then with the caveat that it has some issues. If you are into this kind of thing then it definitely needs to be a part of your Netflix queue when it hits DVD.