Dracula Movie Critique – Besson’s Love-Struck Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Absurd but Entertaining
Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for stylish excess. Still, it has to be said: his opulently crafted vampire romance has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I might just favor over Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, including one shot that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
Christoph Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Priest Tracking the Undead
Christoph Waltz plays a witty yet careworn cleric fighting vampires – it feels natural for him to tackle this role before – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the evil Count Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Carell’s Gru character in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role he seemed destined to play.
The Narrative: A Chronicle of Longing
The story is this: the count has wandered endlessly the globe in torment for hundreds of years since he became undead, a consequence for his faithless sorrow following the loss of his beloved Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). The count has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who could be the reincarnation of his lost love. By cruel fate, the fortunate female proves to be Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who has recently been to the count’s castle to discuss his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.
Besson’s Direction and Lighthearted Touch
Besson arranges Dracula’s second-act backstory of international journeys sporting extravagant attire with a sure hand, and he is not above offering some comedy moments in the style of Mel Brooks – for example the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to commit suicide following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to comical sequences that result after Dracula douses himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, which makes him unavoidably attractive to females. Outlandish but entertaining.
Dracula is on digital platforms beginning on the first of December and in disc format starting the twenty-second of December. It will be shown in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.
