Dracula Movie Critique – Luc Besson’s Passionate Reinterpretation of the Gothic Classic is Absurd but Watchable
Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for polished extravagance. Still, it has to be said: his lavishly upholstered love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, such as a scene that looks like it presents a land border between France and Romania.
Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Clergyman Hunting Vampires
Christoph Waltz portrays a clever but beleaguered cleric fighting vampires – it’s surprising he never took on 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 using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Steve Carell’s Gru in the Despicable Me films. This character he seemed destined to play.
The Narrative: A Tale of Love and Loss
The plot unfolds as follows: the count has been restlessly roaming the earth in anguish for hundreds of years since he became undead, a punishment due to his blasphemous mourning over the death of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). the vampire has looked tirelessly for some woman who could be the reincarnation of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (also Bleu, of course), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to negotiate his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the charming Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.
Besson’s Handling and Comic Flair
Besson structures Dracula’s flashback sequence of worldwide travels in various outrageous costumes with a sure hand, and he is not above giving us some comedy moments with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – such as the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, along with farcical scenes that occur when Dracula applies to himself using a particular scent in 18th-century Florence, which makes him unavoidably attractive to females. Ridiculous and watchable.
Dracula is available digitally from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.
