Almost Everything About the Film is Wrong

Rating: 4/10 (9 November 2019)

First of all, I must preface this review by letting you know that I am not necessarily a big fan of vampire films, but I have nothing against them either, they are like any other kind of movie to me.
I've recently started reading the book and I decided to see the movie, while I am half way through the book. First thing that I can list among many other things the movie has done wrong is that its tone is totally different than the book, the book is not campy! I hate when people make movies as if they are telling children tales for grown-ups. This movie does exactly that. For the same reason, I don't like the hobbit films, despite the fact that I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But to be fair to Peter Jackson, The Hobbit is a children's book. But Dracula isn't, so, Coppola has really no excuse of making a mockery of the book and then going further and calling it 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'. No, it's Coppola's Dracula and it, in my opinion, sucks.
Another major wrong of the film is the casting. Young Winona Ryder is indeed a beautiful woman. But I cannot imagine her as Dracula's bride. She has sort of a childish beauty, more fitting to a college girl role or something. For Dracula's bride, I would imagine a woman who is more exotic looking or somehow beautiful and unsettling at the same time. When Winona's character turned vampire(sort of) she wasn't intimidating at all, she is too adorable and childlike. Olivia Wilde comes to my mind as an example, who would make a great bride for Dracula, though I am aware, she was probably a kid when this movie came out, it is just an example. I had the same feeling for Gary Oldman, I can't picture him as Dracula. He just looks weird as old Dracula and he looks comical with that mustache when he turns to young Dracula. Keanu Reeves is just horrible in this. He is even more emotionless than usual. Anthony Hopkins, an actor I really like, was also miscast in my opinion and he, like most other actors in the film, just hammed it up. And lastly, although I don't have any problem with the actress who played Lucy, she is the one character that is most butchered by the film. She is totally different in the book, such a sweat and likable young woman with dignity. Weirdly, she is portrait as sl*t in the film. Some of the attributes that she gains after turning a vampire, like being seductive, etc. are given to her character as her default attributes in the film.
Then there are the weird edits and comical looking miniatures. It's really hard to believe that the same person who made The Godfather has also made this film. There are weird technical and artistic choices that baffles you and reminds you the bad movies that are unintentionally funny. For the sunset deadline scene, it seems like they've filmed for several different sunsets then decided to use them all at once. Some of the edits are like a bad dream and I don't believe they are intentionally so, for they are unrelated to characters' horror, fever moments.
I'll finish saying there are some good ideas here and there, but they are just buried under so many mistakes. I can understand that some people can enjoy this film, so I am not gonna make a positive or negative recommendation, but I can't stress it enough that this is not Bram Stoker's Dracula, it's Coppola's...