Dracula Movie Critique – Luc Besson’s Romantic Reimagining of the Gothic Classic is Ridiculous but Entertaining

Perhaps interest is limited for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for stylish excess. However, one must admit: his opulently crafted love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I might just favor to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, including one shot that looks like it presents a land border between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Clever but Weary Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz plays a witty yet careworn man of the church pursuing the undead – I can’t believe he hasn’t played such a part earlier – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. The same goes for the sinister Dracula, enacted by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect evoking Steve Carell’s Gru of the Despicable Me series. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Narrative: A Tale of Love and Loss

The plot unfolds as follows: the count has wandered endlessly the globe in torment for hundreds of years following his rise as one of the undead, a punishment due to his blasphemous mourning following the loss of his wife, Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). The count has sought relentlessly for a lady who would be the return of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the lucky lady turns out to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to Dracula’s fortress to discuss his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the lovely Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Lighthearted Touch

Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of international journeys in various outrageous costumes confidently, and he is not above offering some comedy moments with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to farcical scenes that follow Dracula sprays himself using a particular scent in 18th-century Florence, which makes him unavoidably attractive to females. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online starting December 1st and in disc format from 22 December. It plays in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.