REMAKE VS. REBOOT SPECIAL EDITION: DRACULA

I agree with you that Reeves was well cast as Harker. I've read the book and you describe Harker well.

Man, that Van Helsing pic.

Oh God, Argento's Dracula looks worse than I expected. Although that Praying Mantis is pretty rad.

A herd of wild preying mantises couldn't keep me away from Argento's DRACULA. 

Frank Langella was a great Dracula. While his Dracula was a romantic, it wasn't anything like the Twilight vampires. He was charming women so they would willing give up the blood. He was also vicious when he had to be. Look what he did to Van Helsing and Renfield. The way Dracula is killed is pretty cool.

Yeah, it really is a shame that Langella's hairstyle (and generally prissy makeup) stick in the mind (even at the time, it looked like utter cheese), because it otherwise is a pretty successful re-invention (and Olivier is at his hammiest). I could wish that they had gone for more of the disorienting Edward Gorey spirit of the stage production, but the well-executed period setting works fine.

Coppola gets at the weirdness of the book and the character, as does Oldman. A tighter script would have helped (not that the novel is any model of concision); in particular, "less is more" should have guided the Oldman/Ryder pairing, but it's the Dracula film I'm most likely to pop in the player and rewatch.

Well, except for Dracula 2000, anytime I want to tease the Mrs about her Gerard Butler enthusiasm...