Not the novel, but enjoyable.

Rating: 7/10 (30 November 2002)

Everybody's favorite vampire leaves his gloomy castle in Transylvania with a hankering to find love and fresh blood in London in Francis ford Coppola's epic- scale retelling of novel. Actually, the title of this film is deceptive. Despite screenwriter James V. Hart's arguments to the contrary, this film certainly doesn't accurately convey the contents of the book, which he seemed to view only as a treatise about repressed female sexuality in the Victorian period. With that in mind, one shouldn't be surprised to see that the filmmakers chose to treat the film primarily as a romance and not a horror story. However, there is still much to satisfy hardcore fans of the genre here. This is a visually-impressive film with a somewhat surreal story-book quality. Gary Oldham is quite impressive as Dracula. He handles the count's various forms and incarnations with aplomb. Anthony Hopkins is also fun to watch as doctor Van Helsing. Other actors didn't fare as well, such as Keanu Reeves, who seemed to struggle with the English accent. This film doesn't rank anywhere near "Apocalypse Now" or the "Godfather" films, but it will fit comfortably into the Coppola canon.