Extremely Funny

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2005)

Vampire films almost by definition are parodies, just as the Victorian-era vampire story is almost by definition a metaphor for repressed sexuality. These run from the obvious ("Fearless Vampire Killers"), to the subtle ("Van Helsing"), to the self-parody ("Bram Stoker's Dracula").
Coppola's "Dracula" is a lush high budget adaptation that bears only a slight resemblance to the Bram Stoker original story. That it takes a major liberty by adding bad history to make the title character sympathetic is forgivable, in part because it adds to the self-parody element and in part because this version still incorporates the enough elements of the original-if somewhat reinterpreted to better align with the sympathetic treatment.
The parody elements begin early when Dracula declares war on God by pushing his sword into a stone cross which then begins to flood the room with blood (yes it is as silly as it sounds). At one point Coppola breaks the conventions of the genre and allows Dracula to walk around in daylight. Dracula's getup for this scene may have been the inspiration for Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka look. The warders in the insane asylum spend their on camera time spraying the patients with fire hoses, and they wear birdcages on their heads while performing this duty. Throughout the film, Coppola and his post-production people parody the overuse of "match cut" transitions (i.e. when a light in the current scene cross-dissolves into a fire in the next scene) by other filmmakers. They make almost all transitions into overreaching match cuts. This is all enormous fun to watch but not as much fun as the wild performances by the cast.
Gary Oldman, Sadie Frost, Richard E. Grant, Tom Waits, and Anthony Hopkins all overplay their characters in a nice self-parodying way. They obviously are having a whole lot of fun playing this stuff for laughs. At one point Oldman gets to wear a makeup design that would work well in a Star Trek episode. But Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder act like Coppola forgot to let them in on the joke (unless everyone in the cast is happy because they are laughing at Reeves' lame attempt at a British accent). Reeves is too limited in the talent department to pull out an over-the-top self-parodying performance. Ryder's situation is a little different, her style and strength is playing all her roles as if they are real. Although this works nicely for things like her Veronica character in "Heathers", it leaves her at the mercy of the script. Here the Mina character just doesn't have enough complexity to justify Winona's efforts.
Speaking of Winona, she has never looked more desirable than in this film and the same can be said for Sadie Frost. This is ample justification for male viewers to seek out this film. Ryder and Frost even manage a brief passionate kiss during a cloudburst.
There is one wondrously nice sequence where the editor cuts back and forth between Lucy's last encounter with Dracula and Nina's wedding ceremony. It is really a slick bit of film magic and a nice illustration of the sexual nature of the whole vampire genre.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.