A good and unique movie.

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2004)

First off, i've never read the original book. I am led to believe that in terms of sequence of events and characters this film is quite close to it.

The romantic theme and overtone is completely new, (apparently) however, and while that's a huge change, i rather enjoyed it as it made Dracula, or Prince Vlad, more of a tragic villain. Of course, the gruesome details of the historical Vlad III, whom, (although never ACTUALLY stated in the book OR movie, i don't think) the supernatural Dracula is undeniably based on, were largely ignored or only lightly touched upon in this movie; but I think that's more so you can actually empathize with the antagonist.

Great performances by Oldman and Hopkins. The rest of the cast wasn't bad... although i do think Reeves was miscast...
Interesting directing style and cinematography, too. Sometimes, however i didn't exactly know what was going on, and i think that was just a symptom of the "artistic" efforts of the filmmakers. If i were to pick a definite weakness of the film that'd be it. On the upside, however, that "weakness" leaves much of the film, including the ending, very up for interpretation to the viewer, which is kind of nice. Some of the "tools" like the superimposition used very often in the film were very effective.
All in all, the movie is appropriately creepy most of the time, there's a good link between the bloodlust and pure lust, and the love story is a first in Dracula movies, i think, which is nicely creative.
A definite classic.