Frank Coppola's Suckula

Rating: 1/10 (1 November 2005)

This is, quite simply, one of the worst movies ever made. It would almost come off as a parody, except for the fact that it is vein-drainingly awful.
I actually remember rather liking this when I first saw it. This was before I read Stoker's book, but I still can't imagine how I could have actually liked this horrible, steaming, squirming pile of vampire guano.
There is literally nothing good about this film and if there is, it has been engulfed by the horrible murk that surrounds it. This movie is actually jaw-dropping in its sheer awfulness.
Every part has been miscast or misplayed and every scene seems artificial. Keanu Reeves is responsible for roughly 35% of the movie's suckage, but Winona Ryder carries some of the load there; at least 15%). Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins both suck as well, but their sucktitude is merely incidental; I'm not sure they make the movie any worse than it would have been with just Reeves and Ryder stinking up the joint. Either that or their contributions (maybe 5% each) are simply rendered obsolete by the suckescence of Reeves and Ryder. The other actors (Elwes, etc.) are just sort of...there. As for the cinematography, etc., blah. If you can't appreciate the story, who gives a turd about the scenery? Anyway, it looks fake.
All this suckage is without even touching upon the fact that it bears scant to the novel (the remaining 40%), which wouldn't be a problem, necessarily, if he hadn't attached Bram Stoker's name to the sucky thing. If you want to make a crappy movie that deviates drastically from the source novel, fine, go ahead; but don't attach the author's name to it. The very essence of the novel has changed in the film. Stoker's demonic Dracula has been morphed into some sort of lovesick and misunderstood hero. We go from wanting Dracula destroyed in the novel to (theoretically) sympathizing with him in the movie (along with suckerific lines like Hopkins' "We have all become God's madmen. All of us" *groan*). Seriously, WTH? I mean, it stops being Bram Stoker's Dracula right from the opening scene; no, scratch that, it stops being BRAM STOKER's Dracula with the freakin' movie poster (the very place it makes its outrageous claim). The tagline is "Love Never Dies." WTH has that to do with Bram Stoker's Dracula, I ask you? On a side note, I'm not sure where the prevalent stake-through-the-heart myth comes from but I don't recall seeing any mention of it in Stoker's book. A knife seemed to the trick just fine there.