I read the book recently. It’s very good. It did take me a while to stop reading every word without Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder narrating in my head. Their accents in this, as noted by John Grant are pretty atrocious, but get past that quickly and this really is a very enjoyable. Dracula, a medieval Romanian Prince/Warlord is thrown into despair after his bride commits suicide thinking him too to be dead. Believing her doomed for eternity for her act, he renounces god and embraces all that is dark and evil. As set ups go, it’s pretty gripping. Dracula (Gary Oldman) looks great in his youthful battle armour. In fact he really steals the show throughout in the costume department. Centuries later in 19th century London, Dracula is still alive. He’s not actually in London yet, that’s pretty much his goal for the entire story, to move house, but Renfield (Tom Waits, what a voice), a fly consuming resident of the local asylum senses him. How you might ask. Well incase you’ve been living under a rock and didn’t know… Dracula or Count Dracula to give him his full title, is a vampire! Renfield was to assist Dracula as his estate agent (I don’t remember this from the book, but it works). His downfall leaves Jonathan Harker (Reeves) to be drafted in. He’s to go to Transylvania to meet and help the Count with the move. To say his portrayal of the young English gent is wooden is an understatement, it’s even worse than his fiance Mina (Ryder), who at least seems to be having some fun with it. It’s certainly not lacking in style. The sets, the costume. Everything is painted with gothic fairytale menace. It’s in every sense of the word, wonderful. The first glimpse of the vampiric legend is as spectacular as could be hoped. Pale skin, blood red robes and an improbable hairstyle in a cold hostile looking castle. It’s not long before he sees a photo of Harkers fiancé and spots the eerie resemblace to his lost bride. Harker doesn’t know it yet (he’s not the sharpest tool) but Dracula has plans for him. The cast fills out with a few extras, Mina’s playful rich friend Lucy (Sadie Frost) and a host of her amorous suitors including Richard E. Grant and Cary Elwes. They’re largely superfluous, other than Jack (Grant), a morphine loving doctor who runs the asylum hosting Renfield. Their stories are better fleshed out in the book, but here they’re simple padding until we get back to the scenes with Dracula driving Harker mad, trapped in his castle, writing letters to Mina, that provide plenty of folklore exposition. Fun as it is, it could quickly decend into style over content, but Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) helps. He arrives to help Lucy who’s been bitten by our vampire. That said, maybe what makes this so watchable is the style. It really does look wonderful. Yes some of the FX are a bit 90s, but they fit perfectly. Don’t get me wrong, the bizarre love triangle with Dracula inserting himself into Harker’s & Mina’s life is fun, but not as much as the titans Hopkins & Oldham going head to head in their roles of good and evil. It’s pretty faithful to the text, but stands on its own for its pure visual strength. Overblown, it’s everything it should be.
7/10
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