Darkly Beautiful--But Sterile and Uninvolving

Rating: 6/10 (3 February 2008)

Although it received generally positive reviews and proved a world-wide box office success, public reaction to the 1992 BRAM STOKER'S Dracula was significantly mixed. To a certain extent, this reaction was based on the film's slightly abstract, extremely operatic visual style--a style which seemed to overpower not only the actors but the actual story itself.
Dracula has a spectacular visual design that mixes ideas about Victorian style with flamboyant color and ornate, border-line baroque detail that seems more suited to an Asian stage play than a film presumably set in 1890s England. The cinematography follows suit, using double and triple exposures, shared screen photography, and intense washes of color. The result is tremendously moody, both beautiful and ominous. It is also extremely distracting, and it tends to bury the actors, script, and story to such an extent that the film becomes less about these elements than about the mood and look inflicted upon them.
At the time it was released, Dracula was touted as the first film version that was faithful to the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker--but this is not true, as any one who has read the novel can attest. The film has been deeply influenced by the Bela Lugosi film, the Boris Karloff THE MUMMY, and the "Hammer Horror" vampire films of the 1960s; it explains how Dracula became a vampire, incorporates dollops of reincarnation, includes a very romantic subplot, and presents us with an ultimately sexy vampire--none of which exist in Stoker's novel. There is also considerable sex, and while this is a part of the original novel its power there arises from its subtextual nature; here it is rendered explicit and consequently seems less powerful than merely commonplace. Even so, the core story of Dracula's transition from Transylvannia to England, his attacks on Lucy and Mina, and his ultimate destruction remains much the same.
The casting of Gary Oldman as Dracula and Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing was a stroke of genius, but sad to say the production-heavy nature of the film doesn't allow them the necessary wiggle-room necessary to create the memorable performances you would expect. Winona Ryder seems very aptly cast as Mina, as does Sadie Frost as Lucy--but the script undercuts both, leaving Mina slightly chilly and Lucy excessively overheated. As for the eternally wooden Keanu Reeves, he lives up to his reputation as one of the least interesting actors of the era, delivering a memorably wooden performance.
When the film delivers, it does so memorably, with the scene in which Lucy is laid to rest for once and all a case in point. But overall, BRAM STOKER'S Dracula is not Bram Stoker, nor is it actually a cohesive variation: it simply a particularly exotic vision forced upon a story that doesn't support it. The result is often darkly beautiful, but it is also somewhat sterile and surprisingly uninvolving. The recent "special edition" DVD actually undercuts the visual interest of the film; the transfer is dreadful. If you are a fan who wants the bonus material--and there is a goodly amount of it--you would do best to hang onto your original DVD copy as well, for it will be superior to the version offered here.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer