Dracula Movie Critique – Besson’s Romantic Reimagining of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Absurd but Entertaining

Maybe there is no great enthusiasm for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for glossiness and bloat. However, it’s worth noting: his richly designed love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and with its B-movie charm, it could be preferable to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, including one shot that appears to show a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Humorously Exhausted Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz embodies a clever but beleaguered vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who ends up in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the sinister Dracula, brought to life by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Carell’s Gru character in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Story: A Saga of Heartbreak

Here’s the premise: the count has been restlessly roaming the globe in torment for 400 years after his transformation into a vampire, a penalty for his irreligious grief after the passing of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has sought relentlessly for a lady who might be the return of his lost love. Unfortunately, the chosen woman proves to be Mina (also Bleu, of course), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who has recently been to the count’s castle to review his property portfolio and the tiny painting of the charming Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

Besson’s Handling and Comic Flair

Besson structures Dracula’s flashback sequence of global roaming in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he is not above offering some comedy moments in the style of Mel Brooks – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to commit suicide post-Elisabeta’s demise, as well as absurd moments that occur when Dracula douses himself with a specific fragrance in historic Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula is available digitally from 1 December and in disc format from 22 December. It will be shown in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.