Stunning story, settings and Oldman

Rating: 9/10 (28 February 2008)

The dark tale about the legendary vampire is brought to a vivid light by the brilliance of Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola in this dark fantasy horror.
Gary Oldman (Air Force one) portrays Count Dracula beautifully, being both malicious but sensitive at frequent occasions as he travels to London and believes to have found a woman, who is a reincarnation of a lady he once loved many many years ago.
This adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel is dark and powerful, with a strong focus upon the ideology of evil, with Oldman doing superbly to portray the Count's evilness against Anthony Hopkins' (Silence of the Lambs) goodness as Van Helsing.
Keanu Reeves (The Matrix) is a bit of a let down as Jonathan Harker with his character not being in the film not nearly enough.
Winona Ryder (Little Women) is excellent as Mina Murray, Count's love interest. The two perform well together, having tense and exciting scenes together.
It's a very dark romantic tale for these two and is portrayed by Coppola in an exciting and edgy way.
The settings used are fantastic with the darkness a key element to portray the mood of the characters and the situations.
The film took a while to get going as it had a lot of character building to get through before building on the plot and the main theme of the film.
This particular version of the legend is quite interesting because of Dracula's portrayal, in that he is portrayed more romantically than before, though still very gruesome and evil. It's interesting to take these factors into account as the film progresses.
It's quite an erotic film with plenty of sexual tension from the leading actresses as Dracula becomes more involved with his victims.
It is gruesome to with a lot of blood used to emphasise the evilness of the central characters and the suffering of the victims.
It's a visually stunning dark film with great acting, great settings and an intriguing tale