Bram Stoker's Dracula

Released: 1992
Horror
Starring: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Running Time: 128 minutes of missed opportunity

The breakdown:
A reinterpretation of the classic novel with the same name, this is a story about love, revenge, war, and immortality.





This movie is based closely on Bram Stoker's original novel of the same name.  A lawyer, Jonathan Harker, played by Reeves, gets sent to a terribly scary village in Eastern Europe (Transylvania).  He begins working at a creepy residence for an eccentric old man with a huge obscene hair do.  Vlad Dracula (pronounced Drah Coo-la) the impaler, a.k.a. Dracula (now pronounced Drack u la) captures Reeves and imprisons him in his castle (who wouldn't?!).  It really doesn't look that bad since he gets seduced in bed by 3 female vampires including Monica Bellucci.  Dracula sees a picture of the lawyers fiancee, Mina, played awkwardly and terribly by one of the most overrated actresses of all time, Winona Ryder, and must travel to London immediately.  See when Dracula was Vlad his wife committed suicide thinking Vlad had died in the midst of battle due to a false report.  When Vlad came home, very healthy and alive, and saw what happened he desecrates his chapel and renounces God.  He is enraged that his wife, Elisabeta, has been damned for killing herself and wouldn't go to Heaven.  He says he will rise from the grave to get revenge for his wife's death with supernatural powers of darkness.  (This is the scene in the movie where the big cross is bleeding).  Mina is a spitting image of Vlad's long dead wife, and Dracula believes she is a direct reincarnation.
So, Dracula comes to Britain (in boxes of his homeland's soil and in wolf form) and starts raising Hell.  He goes to Lucy, which is Mina's best gal pal and bites her and has sex with her as a werewolf (though, I'm not sure how the whole werewolf/vampire thing works out.  I thought it was bat/vampire).  Anyway, people all come together at that point to try to save Lucy (she has many male suitors, but settled on one to marry) including Professor Abraham Van Helsing, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins.  Van Helsing recognizes Lucy's symptoms as being a vampire and wants to take action to stop Dracula.
So, of course, Dracula (who during the day is in human form) charms Mina, but Jonathan Harker sends word to her that he escaped the castle and took shelter at a convent.  Mina immediately travels to Romania to marry him.  Dracula is so enraged he turns Lucy into a full blooded vampire (pun intended!)
After the happy couple come back to London, Harker and Van Helsing lead the fight to kill Dracula.  They destroy the boxes of soil so Dracula can't travel anywhere.  Problem is, Mina keeps hanging out with Dracula and starts to remember her former life with him as Elisabeta.  She encourages him to change her over to a vampire.  As he does so, the hunters burst into their room and realize she is already transforming and is now Dracula's bride, Dracula flees.  Van Helsing hypnotizes her and learns all about her and Dracula, and their past life together.  They also find out he is already travelling home on a boat in a box of soil that they missed.
Extra box of Romanian soil - "I never leave home without it!"

Anyway,
The hunters leave to go after him, but now Dracula can read Mina's mind and evades capture.  As Mina is becoming more vampire she tries to bite Van Helsing, as she comes closer, he pushes a communion wafer onto her forehead and it leaves a burn mark.  She recoils and he escapes.
Back in Transylvania, at the castle, sunset is approaching and the hunters are close to catching up to Dracula.  Dracula's carriage arrives home and he waits until sunset to come out.  As he does Harker slits Dracula's throat as another hunter stabs him in the heart and leaves the blade in.  Dracula and Mina go into their castle away from the hunters.  The hunters allow them to without chase.
In the chapel where he renounced God, Dracula begins dying in a weird ugly demonic form.  He wants peace from Mina and she kisses him as she pushes the blade deeper into his heart.  The candles all light up in the chapel (on their own) and the mark on Mina's forehead disappears, meaning the curse is gone.  She cuts off his head and looks up at the painting of Vlad and Elisabeta rising up to Heaven together.

So let's start with the good things I liked about this film (because there aren't many).
The visuals - the colorful back lighting, the puppet stuff for the war scenes, wardrobe and costumes are gorgeous!  I love all the color and attention to detail in the visual stuff.  The scenes at the beginning of the film were very arresting and I was excited to see the rest.  Gary Oldman is an awesome actor and I really love watching his movies, normally.  I think, visually, this movie is stunning, but I have a lot of problems with other things. 

The bad.
The acting, including the accents.  Ryder, and Reeves are the two I'm targeting here for the worst English accents in the movie.  Reeves has even said he signed up for too many consecutive movies before acting in this role and he just "didn't have the energy needed" for this one.  I like Keanu, I really really do think he's cute and could be a much better actor overall if he just put some INFLECTION in his voice and quit with the monotone already.  But in this role, he's pretty weak.  Ryder, I can't stand at all in movies.  She just isn't talented and I'm not sure how she keeps getting work.  Her bad acting in this role was so distracting I think it really took a lot away from the movie.
The plot sometimes is so ambiguous and enigmatic that it can lose a viewer easily who can't keep up.  Even I needed some explanation for what I thought I already understood.  I didn't think the movie was scary enough honestly.  I went to go see this on opening night at the midnight showing and I almost fell asleep.  I was so looking forward to it and ended up just walking away disappointed.

The ugly.
I love Gary Oldman, but who's idea was it to style his hair to resemble a big old butt on his head as the old man?  They could've done a tasteful large single bun, or a ponytail.  He's Dracula, they could've done a million strange things that didn't resemble a body part.  I'll never understand why they liked that one.
On the same note, during the day in London,  Dracula kinda' looks like a well dressed, although strangely dressed still, homeless man.  Long wavy brown hair, some facial hair, gloves?  I thought Dracula might try to blend in a little better so as to not stand out too much in the minds of people on the street.

I don't know really.  I think this movie was a missed opportunity.  It could've been so much better with a few actors replaced and the script and plot reworked a little bit.
I still have not read the original book so I really couldn't say exactly how close this movie follows it, but allegedly it's very close.

I give it 1 out of 5 because the things I like are really good, but it's not enough to hold up the movie.