I Figured Out Why I Don't Dig Coppla's Dracula

you're sure you dont just hate Keanu? i HATE Keanu.

ok, I'll say it: pretentious bore

Soem amazing performances. Some amazing camera work. But some horrible performances and absolutely NO subtlety. It is just very uneven is why I think it is decent at best.

It's lurid camp nonsense - which would be fine, if Hammer hadn't already done that approach to perfection fifty years previously. Coppola's version is stylish, but redundant, and no more "faithful" or literary than any other Dracula movie.

This film is like Denise Richards...pretty, but has zero substance.

Besides, who thought it was a good idea to cast Ted in the lead role? Because really, let's face facts here folks...Keanu has played "Ted" in every movie he's made (with maybe the exception of The Gift...in that one he played Ted's drunken redneck uncle).

Addix - That "Kanoe" is a part of the film is why the film is SO enjoyable for me.

I must have listened to him say "DOK-TOR, PLEEESE!" 463 times - and it keeps gettin' funnier...every single time I see it!

And when Oldman licks the blood? Oh, I bust a gut.

After I saw it, I immdiately wanted to make Francis Ford Coppola's General Mills' CHOCULA.

There is a lot to like about the film, yet I don't like the film as a whole. Not at all.

The Good:

- Anthony Hopkin's Van Helsing is just great

- Lucy was hot and the scene in which she gets it on with the wolf was awesome.

- Mostly impressive production & costume design.

- Great score.

The Bad:

- Gary Oldman as Darcula. Everyone keeps talking about how Matrix Boy ruined the film but while he was miscast as hell, it was Oldman who was worst.

- What THE HELL was up with OLD DRACULA? The makeup, the costume!?!? What the fuck?

- Model Trains.

- Oldman dancing in a room full of candles. WRONG!!!

- To call this BRAM STOKER's DRACULA is as silly as to call Brannagh's FRANKENSTEIN MARRY SHELLY's FRANKENSTEIN. It is NOT a faithful adaptation.

By the way, does anyone else remember how there was talk of a film called THE VAN HELSING CRONICLES right after Coppola's DRACULA came out? It was supposed to be directed by Coppola's son Roman and have Hopkins return to his role. I don't know what the plot would've been but since Van Helsing was my favourite character in the film I'd have loved to see more of him in his own movie. It never happened for some reason but maybe this is the origin of Sommer's upcoming VAN HELSING? Personally I'd have taken the adventures of Hopkins' Van Helsing over those of Hunky Hugh any day ...

If memory serves, James V. Hart (the screenwriter of Bram Stoker's Dracula) had written the script and the project was moving forward, but it was Hopkins who said he wouldn't do it. He hated the script apparently. Coppola basically said "No Hopkins, no movie" and that was that. I don't think there's any tie to the Somers movie.

I have to say that Coppola was right ... Hopkins was so great in his few scenes in DRACULA that it would have been very difficult to replace him. Shame on Hopkins, though! He didn't do that film but went for HANNIBAL & the RED DRAGON remake??? Well, maybe the VAN HELSING script was bad. Who knows? I doubt it is floating around the net and script reviews were not en vogue back then ...

Well, I actually liked Oldman as Drac. he had one thing going for him that only Christopher Lee matched. They both really do look like Vlad Tepesh. I think many people have pre-concieved notions of Dracula, or of vampires, and he did not fit them. But if you were to really extrapolate the Impaler to this current Myth, Oldman was a dead on pick.

And he SHOULD be flat. He is an old dead guy for petes sake. Vampires should not be charismatics and debonaire. Leave all that to the hack Anne Rice.

I never really understood why so many people dislike this film... to me it's great, one of my favorite vampire films.

Coppola's version is my favorite Dracula adaptation.

i love the movie too. i HATE Keanu though, have i said that already?

!!!HATE!!!

I remember seeing this in the theaters and being very dissappointed, clearly it was a romance and not a horror movie. However,I still like Coppola's Dracula for two reasons:
set design and costume. The first 8-10 minutes of the movie was kick ass IMO. The scene where Oldman is speaking in Hungarian or Turkish(not sure of the language) and then begins to rebuke God and drink blood... that set and Oldmans' military costume was so awesome it was insane.
I think if the movie would have kept up that momentum it would have been a classic. Unfortunately, it was a travesty.

It's a terrific movie. Most people that didn't like it failed to understand that it's not horror. It might have fantastic elements, but it's a romantic epic inspired by 19th century literature and iconography rather than a scary movie.

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Winona's complete pusbag of a performance. I guess she does get overshadowed by the suckitude that is Keenoo in this flick, and there's a lot to be said for slow motion lesbian kissing, but still.

Some good visuals, Oldman doing a completely over-the-top Bela Lugosi impression, and overall not very good.

It can't be Bram Stoker's dracula with all that "I have crossed oceans of time..." romantic goth crap. None of that was in the novel. In the book Dracula was a ravenous beast and Mina was never attracted to him, she was scared skirtless but powerless to resist. Sexuality was the subtext, but it wasn't romance--it was rape.

Hell, I like this and Frankenstein, which is surely cue for a ball-sac-sandpapering when Dan next bumps into my flesh. I expect it's the old fruit in me.

It bored me senseless but i'm not a big fan of vampire movies. In theory i should love them but i rarely do. Mainly cos they take themselves too seriously and end up sucking. Dracula, Dracula 2000, Queen of the damned - urrrrgggh. Give me fright night instead any day. Interview with a vampire was the only decent serious vampire flick in recent times that i can think of.

Great flick. It also has an utterly fantastic score that is still being way overused in trailers to this day.

And I like the model trains.

As much as I liked this, it just wasn't scary.
Give me the Frank Langella version. Seeing Van Helsing's daughter in the catacombs of the graveyard was nightmare inducing.

Hot damn! What the hell were you smoking when you typed that??? eek!

"I'm coming to save you Mina!! As soon as we can escape the 50ft. cracker!"

<img src="http://images.usatoday.com/life/gallery/mr-rogers/near-train.jpg" alt="" />

eek!

He also borrows heavily from F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus - particularly the "old Salieri" make-up scenes.

No, I can understand that. I certainly don't hate Coppola's Dracula (I own it on DVD, although that's more because the missus loves it), I just don't see the point in it. If I want a garish and camp horror movie then I'll take the classy double act of Cushing and Lee over the double-ham sandwich of Hopkins and Oldman any day of the week.

Branagh's Frankenstein, on the other hand, doesn't even have the decency to be camp. It's just a joyless dirge where the sole redeeming factor is Helena Bonham-Carter's chest cavity.

I can't sit through more than five minutes of this movie anymore. That I ever managed to get through the whole thing utterly mystifies me.

See, now I'm gonna have to watch it again. It's been years and you guys are making me curious to see if I'll like it as much.