It’s about vampires.

Happy?

I have to say, this film is even funnier than Mel Brooks’ ‘Dracula: Dead and loving it’. Shame that ‘Dead’ was an intentional parody, while this blob of celluloid is so piteously earnest.

But let’s not dwell on the superficial, the performances are where this film truly displays its glorious crapulence! I feel safe in saying that never before has anyone managed to so completely miscast a film! Even extras milling about the faux Victorian sets appear completely awkward and uncomfortable!

>Keanu Reeves is simply awful. Surprise! The utter incompetence on display in his performance as Jonathan Harker has been well expounded upon. For the sake of brevity, let’s just say he’s about as British as George Lopez, and every scene he appears in is as jarring as a poke in the eye.

>Winona Ryder is woefully out of place. She's not as awful as Keanu, she just doesn’t belong. In every scene, she seems to have just been slapped in the face with a dead fish. She looks as if she’s wondering just what the hell she’s doing in this movie, and desperately hoping to find a way out. (Who could blame her?)

>Gary Oldman is inadequate. I do not doubt that the man is talented. However, just as Humphrey Bogart should not play Santa Claus, nor Bill Murray Joan of Arc, Oldman is simply NOT Dracula. Of course, it doesn’t help that he was handed such a silly, mincing, goth interpretation of the character.

>Sadie Frost is given the role of Lucy Westenra, although rewritten into a shrill mewling nymphomaniac, which she plays to best of her nasally, boob-flashing talents. The mangled Lucy-thing is so irritating, that when she finally transforms into the child attacking succubus known as the "Bloofer Lady", it seems more like a lateral move.

>Tom Waits as Renfield is simply pitiful, and not in the good way. His lisping, ham-fisted portrayal is not even enjoyable as farce. And I simply don’t understand the huge plume of Lyle Lovett hair! Here a character which is supposed to stir both revulsion and sympathy in the audience, only manages to embarrass.

>The Lucy-thing’s three suitors, (Seward, Morris, and … um, the other one) are remarkably unremarkable, but at least they don’t make total asses out of themselves like the rest of the cast. (Although Campbell’s Texas accent does have a tendency to get lost on him) They tend to function more as set dressing than as actual characters.

Oddly enough, there is at least one instance of perfect casting to offset this trend. Anthony Hopkins of course is good in anything, and casting him as Van Helsing was a momentary fit of genius. Purists may decry Hopkins' borderline psychotic portrayal of the good doctor as more of the same Coppola crappola, but unlike the rest of the cast, Hopkins seems to realize that this silly little mess of a film hes in is not shaping up to be the masterpiece that the director intended. After seeing such a powerful character portrayed so friggin blandly in production after production, I can forgive Hopkins for perhaps being slightly overenthusiastic. His delightfully goofy Van Helsing is the only point of light in this film, and I’ll be forever grateful to him for it.

As for the plot, since we all know what happens in Dracula (Right?!), and since this flick prides itself on being the most faithful adaptation of Stoker so far (*snicker*) I’ll just limit myself to commenting on the “improvements” made in this screenplay. First of all, Anne Rice has a hell of a lot to answer for. While there was always a strong sexual element to the vampire mythos, it had previously been a type of hunter/prey fascination. Along comes Anne, and convinces everyone that for the next 30 years, every vampire in every single g*tdamned work of fiction has to be a simpering, brooding, misunderstood, fey, tormented, pretty boy.

Thanks Anne.