You don't have to look far these days to find a story about how comic books and comic book characters are dominating the landscape of Hollywood. These discussions usually focus on super heroes, as they are the most visible comic book characters making the transition to the sliver screen. In addition, it's typically American comics which are the targets of these talks. However, comic books do exist in other countries and they too have the ability to influence filmmakers. A prime example is Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, a movie based on a long-running Italian comic.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night takes place in modern day New Orleans, where we meet the title character, Dylan Dog (Brandon Routh), a private investigator. At one time, Dylan was charged with the task of being an impartial party to the monsters and undead of The Big Easy, but he's turned his back on that, and along with his assistant, Marcus (Sam Huntington), attempts to work on "normal" cases. He's called in to meet with Elizabeth (Anita Briem) after her father is murdered. However, Dylan quickly realizes that a werewolf was involved and walks away from the case. But, when Marcus is attacked, Dylan realizes that he can't ignore his past and agrees to help Elizabeth. The investigation begins as a nightclub run by a vampire named Vargas (Taye Diggs). But, as the search grows, Dylan learns that he's dealing with something which could effect all of the supernatural beings in the city.

The Dylan Dog comic book premiered in Italy in 1986 and it's incredibly popular there. The Dylan Dog character has become a cult figure and the books have been translated to many languages. Creator Tiziano Sclavi also wrote a novel which was the basis for the 1994 film Cemetery Man. The point here is that is a lot of groundwork on which to base Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. So, why does this movie feel so hackneyed and unoriginal?

Dylan has been removed from his usual home-base of London and placed in New Orleans. Obviously this was done because this is an American production, but also so that the movie can have a noir feel which is steeped in supernatural overtones. But, this was done years ago in Cast a Deadly Spell and many other movies. We then have the ultra-chic vampire night club. Wow, never seen that before. The film's finale feels very similar to that found in Blade. The original ideas, such as a penal colony for zombies, get lost in the shuffle. And then there are simply odd ideas like the morgue attendants who are zombies. That really lost me.

Into this mess comes Dylan Dog, a character I've heard about for years and I still feel like I know nothing about him. This is clearly supposed to be an origin story film, but so much time is spent hurling various ideas at the screen that I felt that I never really got handle on who Dylan is and what makes him tick. Scanning a bio of the comic book character brings out depths which this movie could only imagine. Some of the blame here can go to Brandon Routh's performance. I don't dislike Routh, but he mistakes what is supposed to be Dylan's aloof outlook on life with a lack of emotion, and the character comes across as cold as opposed to cool. On the other hand, Marcus is nothing but emotion, and he becomes very annoying very quickly. (Yes, I've read about the fact that in the comics, someone who thinks they are Groucho Marx is his assistant. I understand why fans protest his absence from the movie, but likeness rights not withstanding, how would that have worked?)

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night was directed by Kevin Munroe, whose one other credit is 2007's TMNT, the CG animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. While that film was beautiful to look at (especially the fight in the rain), it didn't make much sense. Munroe makes his live-action debut with Dylan Dog: Dead of Night and he continues to show that he has trouble telling a story. It sounds as if the Dylan Dog character has a lot of potential and characters who know about what really goes bump in the night can be very fun, but this is a movie which fails painfully on all fronts and does nothing to improve Italian-American relations.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night uses the term "flesh eating zombie" way too much on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 25 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no overt grain and no defects from the source material. Much of Dylan Dog: Dead of Night takes place at night (duh!), but the image is never overly dark. The colors look pretty good, most notably reds. The picture has a notable amount of depth, especially in exterior scenes. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are quite good, especially when alerting us to off-screen sounds. These effects show nice detail and stand out from the center channel. The surround sound effects are fine as well, most notably during action scenes when awful sounds come from behind the characters. These action scenes deliver impressive subwoofer effects which made the movie stand up and ask for attention.

There are no extra features on the Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Blu-ray Disc.