Post by Eλευθερί on Oct 19, 2020 0:39:39 GMT
Very mixed feelings about this one.
Gary Oldman - HORRIBLE accent & horrible performance; totally wrong actor for this part
MAKEUP/Hair - Dracula with that wig looks like an old woman!
not an old warrior/powerful demon!
COSTUMES - I have a love/hate relationship with the costumes
Hate:
(1) you can tell from the very first scenes that this film is going to be a hot mess when you see that bizarre red "armor" that doesn't look anything like armor that Vlad is wearing as he goes out to battle the Turks
(2) Dracula's Order of the Dragon red-silk robes look Japanese, not 15th-century Eastern European—why did they go with that choice?
(3) rejuvenated Dracula 1st meets Mina on the streets of London...as 1970s John Lennon!?? Bizarre
(4) some of Lucy's nightgowns look nothing like 19th-century British or Continental anything
(5) Dracula's costume in one scene in London looks like one of Michael Jackson's military general costumes
Love:
(1) There is a very, very brief scene, lasting less than 2 seconds, in which we get a glimpse of Dracula in his formal burial gowns splendor. (It makes a come back in the final scene, but gets all bloodied up.) Doesn't look authentic at all to the period or region but it's gorgeous.
(2) Some of the gowns Mina and Lucy wear in the scenes where they are introduced are beautiful.
(3) Lucy's burial gown and headdress.
SCORE
It works, more or less, but not memorable in any way. Unlike with Hammer's original or the '79 version by Williams.
DESIGN
So many ghastly design choices in this production. What was that Castle Dracula monstrosity? With so much of this production, most notably in costumes and design, they decided to completely throw out any idea of authenticity and go instead with artistic free-interpretations or dreamlike inspirations & moods. It just doesn't work.
OTHER CASTING/ACTING/DIRECTION
The way Van Helsing was coming on to Mina when he first meets her(?)! Wtf was that?
I got flashbacks to Hannibal Lecter from that scene. Was that the director's intention? If it was, it was a terrible mistake.
Francis Ford Coppola is supposed to be this master, obsessive director. So why are there close-up scenes of actors playing vampires that let you see they are wearing contact lenses? There were no contact lenses of that kind in 1897!!!
The humor was misplaced. In one scene when Dr Seward expresses horror at the thought that Van Helsing wants to do an autopsy, Van Helsing reassures him: "Oh no. I just want to cut off her head and drive a stake through her heart."
In another scene, right after they decapitate and stake Lucy and her head goes flying through the air, the camera cuts to a closeup of Van Helsing enthustiastically slicing into a bloody-rare roast and urging his dining companions to "Eat! Feast!"
On the plus side, this is arguably the first Dracula film with real male eye-candy (Keanu Reeves, Cary Elwes, possibly Billy Campbell & Gary Oldman). And there's more in-your-face nudity and sensuality in this Dracula than in any other big studio-production Dracula film I am aware of. BUT no male nudity.
EFFECTS
This is one of the few Dracula films where there is no scene in which the effects look so ridiculous that they detract from the whole production. In fact, some of the effects are one of the strongest points. There are a couple of scenes using undercranking and reverse motion that are particularly effective and memorable.
THE TITLE
Why did they call it Bram Stoker's Dracula instead of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula? Afaik, Stoker never wrote all of that background stuff about how Dracula became a vampire. Nor did he make Dracula such a sympathetic figure and make the story more of a love story (between Dracula and Mina) than a horror story in which Dracula is the arch-villain. And if you only read the opening chapters of Stoker's Dracula it immediately becomes apparent that Stoker was interested in trying to capture some semblance of authenticity, even if he'd never personally actually been to the places he described in the Carpathians, yet Coppola & his collaborators had no interest in trying to recreate any kind of authenticity to the period.
I was really disappoited with this film when I first saw it, although I have softened a little bit on that since then. But I still don't like it overall.
I waver on how to rate it though.
At the moment, I go with 5.5/10.
Gary Oldman - HORRIBLE accent & horrible performance; totally wrong actor for this part
MAKEUP/Hair - Dracula with that wig looks like an old woman!
not an old warrior/powerful demon!
COSTUMES - I have a love/hate relationship with the costumes
Hate:
(1) you can tell from the very first scenes that this film is going to be a hot mess when you see that bizarre red "armor" that doesn't look anything like armor that Vlad is wearing as he goes out to battle the Turks
(2) Dracula's Order of the Dragon red-silk robes look Japanese, not 15th-century Eastern European—why did they go with that choice?
(3) rejuvenated Dracula 1st meets Mina on the streets of London...as 1970s John Lennon!?? Bizarre
(4) some of Lucy's nightgowns look nothing like 19th-century British or Continental anything
(5) Dracula's costume in one scene in London looks like one of Michael Jackson's military general costumes
Love:
(1) There is a very, very brief scene, lasting less than 2 seconds, in which we get a glimpse of Dracula in his formal burial gowns splendor. (It makes a come back in the final scene, but gets all bloodied up.) Doesn't look authentic at all to the period or region but it's gorgeous.
(2) Some of the gowns Mina and Lucy wear in the scenes where they are introduced are beautiful.
(3) Lucy's burial gown and headdress.
SCORE
It works, more or less, but not memorable in any way. Unlike with Hammer's original or the '79 version by Williams.
DESIGN
So many ghastly design choices in this production. What was that Castle Dracula monstrosity? With so much of this production, most notably in costumes and design, they decided to completely throw out any idea of authenticity and go instead with artistic free-interpretations or dreamlike inspirations & moods. It just doesn't work.
OTHER CASTING/ACTING/DIRECTION
The way Van Helsing was coming on to Mina when he first meets her(?)! Wtf was that?
I got flashbacks to Hannibal Lecter from that scene. Was that the director's intention? If it was, it was a terrible mistake.
Francis Ford Coppola is supposed to be this master, obsessive director. So why are there close-up scenes of actors playing vampires that let you see they are wearing contact lenses? There were no contact lenses of that kind in 1897!!!
The humor was misplaced. In one scene when Dr Seward expresses horror at the thought that Van Helsing wants to do an autopsy, Van Helsing reassures him: "Oh no. I just want to cut off her head and drive a stake through her heart."
In another scene, right after they decapitate and stake Lucy and her head goes flying through the air, the camera cuts to a closeup of Van Helsing enthustiastically slicing into a bloody-rare roast and urging his dining companions to "Eat! Feast!"
On the plus side, this is arguably the first Dracula film with real male eye-candy (Keanu Reeves, Cary Elwes, possibly Billy Campbell & Gary Oldman). And there's more in-your-face nudity and sensuality in this Dracula than in any other big studio-production Dracula film I am aware of. BUT no male nudity.
EFFECTS
This is one of the few Dracula films where there is no scene in which the effects look so ridiculous that they detract from the whole production. In fact, some of the effects are one of the strongest points. There are a couple of scenes using undercranking and reverse motion that are particularly effective and memorable.
THE TITLE
Why did they call it Bram Stoker's Dracula instead of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula? Afaik, Stoker never wrote all of that background stuff about how Dracula became a vampire. Nor did he make Dracula such a sympathetic figure and make the story more of a love story (between Dracula and Mina) than a horror story in which Dracula is the arch-villain. And if you only read the opening chapters of Stoker's Dracula it immediately becomes apparent that Stoker was interested in trying to capture some semblance of authenticity, even if he'd never personally actually been to the places he described in the Carpathians, yet Coppola & his collaborators had no interest in trying to recreate any kind of authenticity to the period.
I was really disappoited with this film when I first saw it, although I have softened a little bit on that since then. But I still don't like it overall.
I waver on how to rate it though.
At the moment, I go with 5.5/10.
