Bram Stoker's Dracula

Gary Oldman is super in this hammy reimagining of the tale of the legendary Count Dracula. Having lured his lawyer - the unsuspecting, and frankly rather insipid, "Harker" (Keanu Reeves) to his Transylvanian Castle he employs cunning and guile to use him to acquire "Carfax Abbey" in England. He also has designs on the young man's glamorous fiancée "Mina" (Winona Ryder) and is soon set to acquire much more than just the eerie stately pile. Luckily, "Prof. Van Helsing" (Anthony Hopkins) is on hand to help our rather hapless hero and perhaps they can thwart the evil intentions of their vampiric visitor? Francis Ford Coppola presents us here with a highly stylised interpretation of the legend. At times it does border on the Hammer style of production with the gore and peril really unconvincing for most of the film. The heavily made up Reeves is easy enough on the eye, but his accent is tougher on the ears and his performance is more about box office than generating any sense of menace as his red-clothed nemesis marauds around in a wig Marie Antoinette would have found fitting. It does send itself up, and that works - there is plenty that is theatrical about it, and that is what helps make this iteration distinctive. Oldman looks even inch the megalomaniac as he effortlessly glides, purrs and munches his way from Romania to Victorian England. Ryder delivers well - her part has very little substance to it, yet she does rise above the all too obvious damsel in distress persona. There are also valuable supporting efforts from Richard E. Grant and the eagle eyed might spot sword and sandals veteran Jay Robinson as "Hawkins". Wojciech Kilar's score helps create quite an atmosphere too, especially as we enter the last half hour of against the clock drama. I didn't much care for the way the ending is portrayed but after two hours of quickly paced and colourful entertainment, that maybe didn't matter so much. This really does need big screen visuals to have any real impact, and if you can find a cinema screening then this is very much at the better end of the Dracula genre of output - even if it does play rather fast and loose with the book!

Gets worse on repeat viewings. Francis Ford Coppola's take on the Dracula legend sees Gary Oldman as the Count, who as a warrior prince returns from battle to find his true love, who after believing him to have been killed, has committed suicide. Renouncing his Christianity he pledges to return from the death to enact revenge on humanity. Century's later he is back to keep his word but becomes infatuated with Mina (Winona Ryder) who bears a resemblance to his long dead true love. Forget the Bram Stoker bit, this is liberty taken wholesale, and forget any notion of this being a scary Dracula movie, for this is Gothic romance opulence. There is no doubting that as a production design goes, it's top dollar, costumes, photography, score, sets and puppetry etc, all the money is up there on the screen to please the eyes and the ears. But the narrative shift to make Dracula a tragic longing figure is a mistake, as is several casting decisions and performances. It's actually easier to say who comes out of it with credit, so step up Tom Waits as Renfield and Richard E. Grant as Dr. John Seward. Oldman is committed to the lead role, and has tortured soul down pat, but someone thought it was a good idea to make him an old ponce and stick a set of buttocks on his head! You just can't take the character seriously from the moment he appears on screen. There's some vampire erotica as Coppola caters for the horny horror faithful, though these scenes play out like an after midnight MTV video, so not really very sexy at all. While there's a lot of fun to be had, yes you read right, with a number of scenes inserted within the dull narrative: did the great Anthony Hopkins just sniff the cheese and Keanu Reeves attempt a posh British accent? Aaargh! It should have been a Gothic classic, but clearly Coppola was out of his depth tackling such a genre. After giving myself over ten years between returning to watch the film again, I can say with confidence that it's a film that gets worse on repeat viewings. That is unless you like unintentional comedy pictures? 3/10

The script is an unevenly good adaptation of the novel. It resolves better Dracula's aims and motivations through the love story. Also, it provides a more understandable glue to join the 4 men chasing Dracula from a XXth century point of view and removes unimportant characters having a more "round" story. However, due to some changes certain parts are now incoherent since they were not properly adapted to the other changes. In addition, other parts are totally impossible to follow due to the amount of details only commented quickly along the movie. Costumes and general artistic work is superb but it drives the movie to some extreme stravaganza that, in the case of the actors' performances make some parts of the movie completely overacted. In any case, I think this is an iconic movie worth watching more than once.