Okay, so the movie isn't set in London. So there is no Inspector Bloch, Dr. Xabaras, or Groucho Marx. So the zombies are more Shaun of the Dead than Dawn of the Dead. It's still a good movie.
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night stars Brandon Routh (Superman Returns, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) as the eponymous "nightmare investigator", with Sam Huntington (Being Human) as his undead sidekick, Marcus. When the movie begins, Dylan has retired from keeping tabs on the paranormal beings that walk among us (and they walk all among us), and has settled into a more conventional private detective gig. One day, though, a potential client named Elizabeth (Anita Briem, Journey to the Center of the Earth) tries to hire Dylan to solve the death of her father. He refuses, until he returns to his office that night to discover Marcus has also been killed. The two slayings are just the beginning, as Dylan, his now zombified assistant, and Elizabeth crisscross New Orleans in search of the monsters responsible.
Now, readers of the Italian comic books on which the film is based have blasted the movie for its "unfaithfulness" to the original works by Tiziano Sclavi. While it would have been nice to see Brandon Routh playing the clarinet once or twice, the realities of movie-making must intrude at some point. A low budget, for example, means not being able to film in London, where the comics are set. The American city of New Orleans probably comes closest in old school creepiness, though (apologies to the people of New Orleans; and of London, I guess). The same goes for Groucho Marx, the black-and-white era comedian on whom the comics' Dylan's assistant is based and whose likeness is very expensive to use in the States. While they show pictures of people in Groucho glasses and posters for Marx Brothers movies, the cost for securing the rights to have an imitator was likely quite high. Even the American adaptation of the comics had to "shave" Groucho's mustache and change his name to Felix for similar reasons. Sam Huntington more than fills the role of "comedy sidekick", though, as he struggles to adjust to the fact that he's dead; and he and Routh have excellent chemistry due to their time working together on Superman Returns.
Anita Briem's character seems like a bit of a misfire at times, but she certainly follows the path of most female characters in the comics. Often, Dylan Dog finds himself taking the case of an attractive young woman who has lost a loved one (or several) and needs his help coming to grips with the supernatural world into which she's been thrust. And while the supernatural world of the movie differs noticeably from that of the comics, the atmosphere it presents is almost instantly recognizable. The walk they take through the streets at night as Dylan tries to open her eyes to the presence of the undead as they literally pass in front of her eyes would not have seemed out of place on Sclavi's pages, I feel. Sure, the monsters themselves are different, but again, you've gotta give American moviegoers a bone every now and then, show them something they'll recognize, as well.
And then there's Dylan himself. Brandon Routh is a fine actor; I don't think anyone can deny that. He works very well with what he's given, and in this case, he did an excellent job as Dylan Dog. The movie character shared much in common with the comics character: mistrust of technology (the comics Dylan refuses to use a cell phone, the movie Dylan still uses cameras with film in them); a deep, brooding disinterest in the world at large; drives the same VW Bug, even though the colors have been inverted; and, though some may disagree, he even looks a lot like the Dylan from the comics. Dylan is an old school private investigator, whether he's investigating the living, the dead, or the undead. In the movies, though, he's given an additional role: keeping the creatures of the supernatural world from getting out of line. A pact was formed, presumably to protect the "monsters" from being wiped out entirely by humanity, and as part of that pact, a human was chosen to sort of police the undead; to keep them in check, so to speak. In our day, that's Dylan; or, at least it was until he "retired".
That last part is probably the biggest difference between the comic books and the movie. It turns the character from a sort of Philip Marlowe of the undead world into another version of Keanu Reeve's John Constantine, another movie character who wasn't that closely based on his graphic novel counterpart; and it is probably the part of the movie about which fans of the Dylan Dog comics will be the least forgiving. I'm enough of a purist myself to agree that the movie should have done more to adhere to the source material. That being said, I liked the movie a lot. I think they did a fine job with not that much in the way of resources, and they created a very believable "underground" world that could very well coexist with our own. Brandon Routh has always been a favorite actor of mine, and even if this is the latest in a string of underrated movies in which he starred, he and Sam Huntington did a great job in it.
