Dracula Movie Critique – Besson’s Love-Struck Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Absurd but Entertaining
Perhaps there is no great enthusiasm for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for stylish excess. However, it has to be said: his richly designed vampire romance boasts bold vision and flair – and amid its theatrical camp, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer over the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, including one shot that seems to depict a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
The Veteran Actor as a Humorously Exhausted Clergyman Hunting Vampires
Christoph Waltz plays a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – it’s surprising he never took on this character previously – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. So does the evil Count Dracula, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect reminiscent of Steve Carell’s Gru of the Despicable Me series. This character suits him perfectly.
The Narrative: A Tale of Love and Loss
Here’s the premise: the count has traveled ceaselessly the earth in torment for hundreds of years since he became undead, a consequence for his irreligious grief following the loss of his wife, Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). the vampire has been searching, searching, searching for a female who might be the reincarnation of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the lucky lady is revealed as Mina (also Bleu, of course), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to negotiate his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.
Besson’s Handling and Humorous Style
Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels wearing flamboyant outfits with a sure hand, and he willingly includes providing humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to commit suicide following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to comical sequences that follow Dracula sprays himself with a specific fragrance during the 1700s in Florence, that renders him irresistible to women. Ridiculous and watchable.
Dracula is on digital platforms beginning on the first of December and in disc format from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.
