Future episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000

Rating: 2/10 (8 September 2006)

(SPOILER is only in the very last paragraph.)
This film finally answers the question, "What could be funnier than Keanu Reeves with an English accent?"
The answer is: a lot of other things in this picture. Such as Count Dracula's hairstyle throughout the opening, which looks like he's wearing a giant buttocks on his head. (In one of these first scenes, a cool and creepy effect is wonderfully ruined: the audience starts to notice that Dracula's shadow doesn't perfectly follow his actions, which is neat, but within the minute, the shadow itself is overacting to such a hokey and ridiculous extent that the only possible reaction is laughter.)
The only good thing to say about COPPOLA'S Dracula, is that someday it will make a wonderful edition of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." It didn't take long in the room in which I saw this film, for all watchers to start giggling, and eventually just descend into abject ridicule, of the absurd accents of Reaves, Winona Rider, and, reprising his fake Brit from "A Princess Bride" (where it fit, in a kind of Errol-Flynn kind of way), Cary Elwes; of the dumb special effects (that blue halo around the coach was pretty humorous); of the stilted dialogue; of the melodramatic direction and acting. You name it. This movie is fun to see with a group of witty people, but that's all.
This whole film was a shame, right down to calling it "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Bram Stoker surely did a few turns in his own coffin on opening night, particularly given the Beauty-and-the-Beast HAPPY ENDING, in which Dracula is saved by the grace of Mina Harker's love. Unreal! Disgusting, really. The test audiences must have gotten to this one, so they utterly changed the (admittedly anti-climactic) original death of the count as related in, well, um, come to think of it, BRAM STOKER'S Dracula.