Dracula Movie Critique – The French Director’s Passionate Revamp of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Absurd but Engaging
It’s possible audiences aren’t clamoring for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for polished extravagance. However, it has to be said: his richly designed love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable over Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, like a particular moment that seems to depict a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
The Veteran Actor as a Witty Yet Careworn Clergyman Hunting Vampires
Christoph Waltz portrays a clever but beleaguered cleric fighting vampires – I can’t believe he hasn’t played such a part earlier – who ends up in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the sinister Dracula, brought to life by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect evoking Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.
The Story: A Chronicle of Longing
Here’s the premise: the count has wandered endlessly the world in torment over four centuries since he became undead, a punishment for his faithless sorrow after the passing of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has looked tirelessly for some woman who could be the reincarnation of his departed beloved. Unfortunately, the lucky lady is revealed as Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to negotiate his property portfolio and the small picture of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.
Besson’s Direction and Comic Flair
Besson structures Dracula’s second-act backstory of global roaming wearing flamboyant outfits with a sure hand, and he is not above giving us humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to end his own life post-Elisabeta’s demise, as well as farcical scenes that result after Dracula applies to himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, which makes him irresistible to women. Absurd yet engaging.
Dracula is on digital platforms from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray starting the twenty-second of December. It plays in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.
