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Bram Stoker's Dracula Customer Reviews (52 - 54 of 84 Reviews)

Bram Stoker's Dracula
Think of the monstrous ego of the vampire. He thinks himself so important that he is willing to live forever, even under the dreary conditions imposed by his condition. Avoiding the sun, sleeping in coffins, feared by all, he nurses his resentments. In "Bram Stoker's Dracula," the film by Francis Ford Coppola, the vampire shakes his fist at heaven and vows to wait forever for the return of the woman he loves.

The film is inspired by the original Bram Stoker novel, although the author's name is in the title for another reason (Another studio owns the rights to plain "Dracula"). It begins, as it should, with the tragic story of Vlad the Impaler, who went off to fight the Crusades and returned to find that his beloved wife, hearing he was dead, had killed herself. And not just killed herself, but hurled herself from a parapet to a stony doom far below.

Vlad cannot see the justice in his fate. He has marched all the way to the Holy Land on God's business, only to have God play this sort of a trick on him. He embraces Satan and vampirism, and the action moves forward to the late Victorian Age, when mankind is first beginning to embrace the gizmos (phonographs, cameras, the telegraph, motion pictures) that will dispel the silence of the nights through which he has waited fearfully for centuries.

Coppola's plot, from a screenplay by James V. Hart, exists precisely between London, where this modern age is just dawning, and Transylvania, which still sleeps unhealthily in the past. We meet a young attorney (Keanu Reeves) who has been asked to journey out to Dracula's castle to arrange certain real estate transactions. The previous man who was sent on this mission ran into some sort of difficulties .

Reeves' carriage, driven by a man whose hands are claws, hurtles at the edges of precipices until he is finally discharged in the darkness to be met and taken to Dracula's castle. There, everything is more or less as we expect it, only much more so. Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) waits here as he has for centuries for the return of his dead bride, and when he sees a photograph of Reeves' fiancee, Mina Murray (Winona Ryder), he knows his wait has been rewarded at last. She lives again.

Back in London, we meet other principals, including the fearless vampire killer Prof. Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins), and Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost), a free spirit who has three suitors and is Mina's best friend. When Dracula appears in town, Van Helsing's antenna start to quiver. And the movie descends into an orgy of visual decadence, in which what people do is not nearly as degraded as how they look while they do it.

Keanu Reeves, as a serious young man of the future, hardly knows what he's up against with Count Dracula, since Dracula cheerfully changes form - from an ancient wreck to a presentable young man to a cat and a bat and a wolf.

Hopkins lectures learnedly on the nosferatu, yet himself seems capable of teleportation and other tricks not in the physics books. And the Ryder character finds herself falling under the terrible spell of the vampire's need.

There is a chronology of events, as the characters travel back and forth from London to Transylvania, and rendezvous in bedrooms and graveyards.

I enjoyed this twist of the Dracula movie and if you have never seen it I highly recommend atleast viewing it.


VELCOME to the Carpathianssssss
The best Dracula move to date!!! Only downside is that stiff Keanu Reeves... everytime he spoke it made me cringe. Apart from this major downer, the film still overcomes this barrier with a dark, well scripted and directed interpretation by Francis Ford Coppola.
Obviously Gary Oldman had a better dialogue coach than Keanu, mastering his transilvanian accent to capture the anguish, sorrow and pain that Dracula carried with him over the centuries. Without Oldman this movie would have been a surefire flop.
Coppola has remained true to the book and has created an atmospheric and visual masterpiece, but maybe should have spent some time with his choice in actors. The Region 2 DVD has a Documentary, Trailers and Costume Designs. 'Vhat sweet music vey make.' Enjoy!

Visually, a pretty stunning film.
That's what most of the 3 stars are for; the effects, the scope, etc. were exceptionally well-done. The direction was impressive even for Coppola. The story ... well, it veered pretty far from the book, but hey; what Dracula film hasn't? It was still interesting with some intriguing touches. The acting? Oldman was terrific. Hopkins was very good. Tom Waits was surprisingly effective. Everyone else, and I mean EVERYONE, was pretty much useless. Reeves was almost at his very worst, and considering how limited he is anyway, that says a lot. Ryder, as usual, was totally pathetic. I'ne never understood why she ever made it in films at all. She has ZERO talent, and doesn't even look all that great. The rest of the actors were plug-ins that could've been played by almost anyone.

Worth watching for the visuals, but nothing you'd watch over and over unless you're a hardcore Oldman fan

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