Graphic and Repulsive but Frequently Wonderful Aesthetic Values

Rating: 8/10 (21 October 1999)

It's very difficult to say whether this film is good or bad. I found the gore excessive (the movie teeters as if on the tip of a needle, without falling into either the drama or horror pools), and I found the levels of nudity and sexuality (note: I found the "brides of Dracula" and "Lucy meets the Dracula/wolf hybrid creature" scenes to be disgusting and disappointing in the extreme) quite superfluous and repulsive; still, the majority of the images in this film and the way it's played out make it very attractive and memorable.
Winona Ryder's performance is fairly enjoyable.
The two other major players in this film are more enjoyable. Gary Oldman plays a very good Dracula with whom it is difficult not to sympathize (well, most certainly not when he's renouncing God, but later in the film!).
Anthony Hopkins is set most directly against Dracula, and the viewer will no doubt spend much time cheering for him, as well. Oh, he's fantastic, yelling with glee about Lucy's ultimate fate ("She is the devil's concubine! Ha ha!"), waving crosses at the undead and invoking God's protection. He plays Dr. Van Helsing as much, much more fanatic and, well, enthusiastic than Stoker's original character, but this interpretation is quite entertaining, and of course the plot diverges from that of the book sufficiently that the book's portrayal of Van Helsing would have seemed out of place here.
By presenting the viewer with such enjoyable characters on opposite sides of the Eternal Struggle, the film attains a bit of a feeling of dichotomy and frankly left me somewhat depressed and confused. Still, it is visually appealing (in those scenes that did not inspire its R rating), to the point that I find myself wanting to watch the exposition (including Harker's earlier experiences in Dracula's castle) and some of the Van Helsing scenes over and over. The film lacks the depth of, for example, "The Godfather," but it does show that Francis Coppola is a very competent visual director.
The film is not perfect, and it indulges far too much in sex and violence at times, but it is very frequently entertaining.