Jury's out on this one

Rating: Null/10 (28 February 2003)

Having read and enjoyed the book I had high expectations for this film. I hadn't seen any other adaptations either, so I would have nothing but the book to compare it to. So I ordered the DVD. I know you shouldn't judge a DVD by it's cover but when I saw the tagline, "Love never dies," alarm bells started reverberating through my skull.
I don't remember this in the book but what the hey, i'll give it a go anyway. From the first scene I saw exactly what Coppola had done. He had taken Dracula away from it's traditional horror roots and slapped a love story on top of it, for a blood-thirsty bloke this was a little hard to handle. With so much artistic license, could Coppola really claim that this was Bram Stoker's Dracula?
There were elements of the film that I was pleased with though. I was very impressed with the frequent reference to the characters' diaries, the writing covering half of the screen was a very clever visual technique.

The plot had been a bit mashed up in order to fit it into two hours but this meant that the characters do not grow as close as they do in the text. To be honest there is very little character interaction in the film. Gary Oldman, Sadie Frost and Anthony Hopkins all put in strong performances but i'm a little bewildered as to how Keanu Reeves got cast. He was so sure he was the one, I wonder whatever happened to him?
This film uses a lot of strong imagery and in places is visually entertaining. Some of the techniques employed are very clever and pretty unique. However some of the special effects looked a little on the lame side. The make-up department had a field day on Oldman's many guises and it's much to their credit.
Dracula lacked the tension to make it a true horror and as a fan of the book I wasn't really impressed by the romantic dimension that had been added. Romance fans and followers of artistic films will enjoy, fans of the book might want to avoid.
Dracula bites the dust with 6/10