A cinematic masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (7 March 2008)

Journalist asked once from Ernest Hemingway, what he thought now that Hollywood had destructed his books. Hemingway said something like: "What do you mean "destructed"? My books are there, on the book-shelf." Mistitled Bram Stoker's Dracula is not Stoker's 1897 novel, not more than Hammer's wonderful Dracula movies with overrated Christopher Lee. James V. Hart's ambitious, cinematic script follows the plot quite faithfully, but makes changes to the characters and their relationships. Costumes, studio sets and rich colour photography have fruitcake, visually glorious and romantic fairytale quality, mixing a period and the Gothic, and the music score is equally sublime. Mina and Lucy are gorgeous like angels in their dresses, full of lust for life, and Gary Oldman's Dracula is a mix of the vampiric evil and the dark grandeur. Even nicely old-fashioned special effects are lovely. Despite all the negative crap said and written about this movie, Bram Stoker's Dracula is a wonderful movie.