Dracula Movie Critique – The French Director’s Romantic Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Ridiculous but Entertaining
Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for glossiness and bloat. And yet, it has to be said: his richly designed love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor compared with Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, like a particular moment that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
The Veteran Actor as a Clever but Weary Priest Tracking the Undead
Christoph Waltz embodies a humorous yet burdened vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this character previously – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. Likewise present is the sinister Dracula, brought to life by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect reminiscent of Steve Carell’s Gru in the Despicable Me films. This is a part he seemed destined to play.
The Plot: A Saga of Heartbreak
The story is this: the count has traveled ceaselessly the world in anguish over four centuries following his rise as one of the undead, a penalty due to his blasphemous mourning after the passing of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for a female who might be the rebirth of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman turns out to be Mina (also Bleu, of course), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to the count’s castle to review his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina drew the vampire’s attention.
The Filmmaker’s Approach and Humorous Style
Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels sporting extravagant attire with a sure hand, and he is not above offering funny bits reminiscent of Mel Brooks – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, along with farcical scenes that occur when Dracula sprays himself in a certain perfume during the 1700s in Florence, which makes him irresistible to women. Outlandish but entertaining.
Dracula is available digitally beginning on the first of December and in disc format starting the twenty-second of December. It plays in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.
