Not a movie to take your date on

Rating: 2/10 (3 October 2002)

Love Never Dies? Is that the tagline? Who thought that up? Well, I tell you something love does die. I used to love Betty Rubble from the Flintstones, but when I saw the movie it was Rosie O'Donnell! Ewww! I soon fell out of love then, I can tell you.
But enough of my failed romances, here's what's wrong with Dracula:
Firstly there's this guy who runs around killing loads of people and impaling them on spears so that they can die slowly and painfully. He's called Vlad and has got this girlfriend called Elizabeta. Now I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure that if I ran around impaling people on spears or maybe even just one person, I'd be hard pushed to find a willing cellmate, let alone a girlfriend, but clearly Elizabeta likes bad boys. Well she gets confused and thinks that he's dead so she commits suicide (because someone throws a note through the window saying something like `Hi, how are you? Vlad's dead. Love and Hugs, the enemy.')
Vlad is upset and shouts at god, blaming him for Elizabeta's death (Duh! It's not gods fault if your girlfriend's stupid) and becomes damned, so that he can spend eternity looking for his girlfriend. Now, if she's committed suicide then surely she'd have gone to hell and all he had to do was throw himself out of the window and they'd have been reunited. But you see, like his girlfriend, Vlad is a bit thick, and chooses to be damned instead.

Fast forward to Victorian England and a guy called Jonathan, who is pretty dull and boring and doesn't impale anyone or suck their blood. He's engaged to a girl called Mina who looks a lot like Elizabeta, and is probably the re-incarnation of her. Notice that Mina is played by Winona Ryder and not by Rosie O'Donnell, then we'd have seen if love never dies! Anyway, Vlad, comes to England and manages to kill some people and Mina falls in love with him and leaves Jonathan. A bit later Jonathan tries to kill Vlad and SUDDENLY Mina starts getting angry with him! Stop being such a hypocrite woman. Sure, Vlad can go out and kill a few dozen virgins, but as soon as Jonathan starts trying to eradicate blood-sucking monsters, he's in the wrong!
Maybe it's just that I'm an old cynic after the Betty Rubble/Rosie O'Donnell incident, but if Mina was my daughter and came home with Jonathan, I'd think that he was a nice guy a bit dull, but he had a good job and an interesting accent. But if she came home with Vlad, I'd be quite displeased, particularly when the killing/impaling started.
So go and watch Dracula if you think that love never dies, but if like me, you think that love is like a precious orchid, which needs constant attention and care then take you're date to watch a proper romantic movie, like Porky's or Battlefield Earth.