The script completely missed the point

Rating: 2/10 (19 August 2005)

The craftsmanship in this movie is mostly good. The effects are decent for the time, the wardrobe is well made, and the colors and music work well to create a nice mood.
Overall, the acting is good. Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins and Winona Ryder all do a convincing job. Sadly, Keanu Reeves has a rather important role, and between his utter inability to show any sort of human emotion and his absolutely laughable version of British English, he completely ruins every scene he's in.
The biggest problem I found with this movie was the poor script. It's as if they read the book, and then threw it aside and said "hey, let's make a vampire movie". The character assassination of Mina Harker (Winona Ryder) in particular must make Bram Stoker turn in his grave. In Stoker's text, she's a remarkably intelligent woman who several times bails out the rest of the group by coming up with the next move, and while she has empathy for Dracula, is completely dedicated to his destruction. In the movie, she's some sort of love-stricken helpless floozy who wants to help Dracula. Most of the other characters have been made much less likable as well.
Obviously, a movie adaptation of a book will (and should) not be identical to the book, but turning what is a somewhat metaphysical detective story into a very hokey love story was just a very bad idea. It simply doesn't work.
I would say that overall, the movie is pretty terrible.