<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t eaten in centuries,\u201d says the stooped, wrinkled man knocking at a convent door, seeking food and shelter.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a funny line, given that this is a disguised Count Dracula \u2014 who indeed has not eaten in centuries, unless you count human blood. And it\u2019s especially funny given that \u201cDracula\u201d is not now, nor has it ever been, a comedy.<\/p>\n
But the humor is a nice touch, as are the splashes of color, the lovely 19th-century gowns, the rendering of Parisian salons and vivid street celebrations that are part of Luc Besson\u2019s reimagining of the oft-told tale, starring Caleb Landry Jones. And yes, the story of Dracula is not usually set in Paris. There\u2019s a lot that\u2019s familiar in this version, but enough variety, panache and bravado to raise it up a notch.<\/p>\n
Writer-director Besson\u2019s calling card is romance. Unlike Robert Eggers\u2019 2024 \u201cNosferatu,\u201d which was beautiful but bleak to look at and featured an ugly, fearsome vampire, Besson imbues his main character with a swashbuckling sexiness that suits his star\u2019s craggy appeal.<\/p>\n
We begin back in the year 1480, in a remote castle, where a handsome prince \u2014 Vlad is his name, for now \u2014 is frolicking in the bedroom with beautiful bride Elisabeta (Zo\u00eb Bleu). Their playtime is stopped suddenly by Vlad\u2019s men: War is at hand, and it\u2019s time to fight.<\/p>\n
Vlad\u2019s main concern is his wife. He asks the Orthodox priest to swear that God will protect the life of Elisabeta \u2014 after all, they\u2019re fighting in God\u2019s name. Alas, escaping through the forest in the snow, Elisabeta is killed in an ambush. A grief-stricken Vlad returns to kill the priest with his cross, renounce God, damn heaven \u2014 and is thus cursed with immortal life. A life he will spend trying to find his wife, reincarnated.<\/p>\n
Four hundred years later, Vlad, now Count Dracula, resides \u2014 shriveled but stylish, with an incredible flowing, white wig that looks like something Elvis might have worn if he were a 400-year-old vampire \u2014 in the Carpathian Mountains. But the action shifts to Paris, mainly just because Besson loves Paris, where citizens are joyously celebrating the centenary of the French Revolution.<\/p>\n
Paris is also where we meet a prominent vampire-hunter from Bavaria \u2014 and unnamed priest \u2014 played by Christoph Waltz, who you might imagine is perfect for this role. Like Javert hunting Valjean in \u201cLes Miserables,\u201d this priest is determined to find his prey, wherever that takes him.<\/p>\n
And Dracula is on his own mission. In his gloomy castle, where he lives with a gaggle of CGI gargoyles, he prepares to kill a young solicitor (Ewens Abid) who came to see him about his property.<\/p>\n
But then he sees a picture of the frightened young man\u2019s intended, Mina, and becomes obsessed with finding her, certain she\u2019s his reincarnated bride. He spares the man\u2019s life and heads to Paris.<\/p>\n
When, aided by one of his vampire followers, Maria (Matilda De Angelis), Dracula finds Mina \u2014 also played by Bleu (the real-life daughter of Rosanna Arquette) \u2014 he immediately knows she\u2019s his eternal love. Now, all he needs to do is win her heart, and get back to Transylvania to escape the vampire hunters.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of Bessonian flourishes along the way \u2014 those gargoyles sure are weird, and they don\u2019t remain gargoyles \u2014 but in the end, it\u2019s too bad there weren\u2019t even more, to further distinguish this \u201cDracula\u201d telling from many before it.<\/p>\n
In any case it all leads to a fairly satisfying confrontation between Dracula and the priest, saved until the very end, a la Pacino and De Niro in \u201cHeat.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fun to watch Jones and Waltz sink their teeth into a story that\u2019s old as time but can always use another fairly watchable remake.<\/p>\n
Dracula<\/strong><\/p>\n Two and a half stars out of four<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source neon.reviewjournal.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI haven\u2019t eaten in centuries,\u201d says the stooped, wrinkled man knocking at a convent door, seeking food and shelter. It\u2019s a funny line, given that this is a disguised Count Dracula \u2014 who indeed has not eaten in centuries, unless you count human blood. And it\u2019s especially funny given that \u201cDracula\u201d is not now, nor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2270763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Film-review-Luc-Besson-imbues-his-\u2018Dracula-with-romantic-heart.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2270762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2270764,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270762\/revisions\/2270764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2270763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2270762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2270762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2270762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}