Dracula 2000

So here we have it: Dracula updated for the new millennium, a cross between Victorian repression and modern-day themes, all wrapped up in a package not too dissimilar from Hammer’s Dracula 1972 A.D. I’m really not too sure what to make of it. Compared to the Dracula flicks of old, this is vampire-lite; a film happy to go through the old clichés without adding much of anything new to the mix (aside from a last-real twist that attempts to pair the Dracula myth to the Bible but is only partly successful and seems a little bit as if it’s been thrown in for the sake of it).

On the other hand, compared to much modern horror, it does the job: there’s plenty of action, an interesting cast and a not-too-stupid script. We could happily live without this film’s existence, but it isn’t really a chore to watch. The first surprise is with the titular casting: a pre-stardom Gerard Butler plays the vamp here, on the first rung of the ladder to fame. For much of the production I was just thinking how young Butler looks, and how his acting is nothing compared to what it is later on (such as in 300).

He plays sort of a goth-type Dracula, all wavy black hair and long black coat, but the romance surrounding his character stalls and his attempts to be scary never get off the ground. It doesn’t help that there’s too much in-your-face wirework (why have two characters fight on the ground when they could fly up in the air and fight?) which looks clumsy and mishandled. Anyway, I enjoyed the film’s beginning.

The coffin shenanigans are fun to watch and there are a few minor chills before Dracula emerges from his resting place. After that, it seems to fall apart a bit, and the ending is a letdown. Christopher Plummer is well cast as Van Helsing, with a major twist to his character, but he’s sorely underused and barely has any screen time. As for the supporting cast members: South African-born Justine Waddell is rather uninteresting as Mary (aka Mina), Dracula’s main victim; Colleen Fitzpatrick’s Lucy is a bimbo; Jonny Lee Miller is slightly embarrassed as the youthful male lead; Omar Epps makes for a fine, frightening and humorous vampire and Jeri Ryan steals the show as one of Dracula’s sexy, seductive brides.

The action-based narrative moves along swiftly leaving little time for boredom and the vampire antics are mildly engaging, with lashings of bloodshed and flying severed heads to keep things moving, although the old Hollywood cliché of having partners pair off for extended battles at the climax – and the subsequent intercutting between said fights – is thoroughly irritating. Astonishingly, for such an under-the-radar movie that’s been virtually forgotten about ten years after it came out – two sequels have followed to date.