Terrible beyond belief

Rating: 1/10 (8 July 2018)

Caught this on Netflix the other day and donno what audiences at the time felt, but in 2018 this feels pathetic. Watching Gary Oldman in the first scene, I thought this was definitely a parody and then when I heard Keanu Reeves, was sure this was gonna be a hoot. Nope. Not even close. It is also not dark or intriguing.
Looks like the actors signed on to work with the famed director and paid no attention to the script and totally hammed it up in whatever horrible accents they could do.
A large part of the blame must go to the adapter of the novel - you cannot just throw in your own fantasies and gratuitous sexual content (like writhing women in silk à la Ghostbusters only with loads of women whose tops are off, beasts in disgusting acts). Adding explicit sexual content or meaningless "layers" to characters that are not in the original (like making Dracula some sort of hot bad boy that women are attracted to), you are only cheapening the source material, not making it contemporary. When you add something to existing source material, it should be in tone with the rest of the content, respect the characters for what they are and also be in tune with the time period. In this film, Dracula is reduced to a poor confusing joke and Mina - what is really going on with her? Don't even get me started on Van Helsing.
With a runtime of 2+ hours, it is way too long for this borefest but still seems like everything was rushed. For a big studio film, couldn't they atleast spend some money on getting the blood right?