This Dracula sucked.

Rating: 7/10 (27 April 2007)

I give you that the look of the film was good, the acting was adequate. The casting was terrible and done for the wrong reasons. And why must they constantly rewrite Stoker when they claim to be following his original work. My biggest complaint was Anthony Hopkins. Van Helsing is, according to Stoker, a well known and well admired physician and occultist, but the script, or Hopkins (a fine actor who I greatly admire) turned him into a raving eccentric and a rude one at that. Van Helsing, an old fashion European Gentleman would never had been as rude to Mina, as he was at the dinner after Lucy's staking. Keannu Reeves did not belong in the film either. He was totally unbelievable. And the special effects, which I often appreciate in and of themselves, actually detracted from the story. Although there was one, of Dracula gesturing with a hand and a cross bursting into flame, that I was able to incorporate into a live stage version of Dracula several years later. The film wasn't really all that bad, but I did cringe a lot when I watched it. Gary Oldman did an excellent job though, as very sympathetic Dracula, which in return made his character all that much more menacing. Still, sorry, not my favorite version.