Dracula 2000 | | Cast : | Gerard Butler, Jonny Lee Miller, Justine Waddell | | Director : | Patrick Lussier | | Studio : | Dimension Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | December 22, 2000 | | DVD Released Date : | February 04, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 02, 2005 | | Summary | Dracula updated | Content
 | Lots of entertainment and thrills. Okay acting and a really intriguing take on the Dracula legend. Gerard Butler is quite good as the protagonist. Loved his Scottish accent that would slip out once and a while! Who cares? He's great to look at!!
Nice to see all the future stars in small roles: Danny Masterson(That 70's Show) Jeri Ryan(Star Trek) and Shane West in a very small role. Good fun! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 29, 2005 | | Summary | Good middle-of-the-road vampire flick | Content
| I was expecting this to be a giant disaster of a film, but was pleasantly surprised by it. This film doesn't have the ambition of, say, "Bram Stoker's Dracula," but it still takes the genre seriously and does right by it.
In many ways, the movie is extremely faithful to the original book, just presupposing that Dracula wasn't able to be killed at the end of Stoker's story, and was just sealed away instead, waiting for some idiot to free him from his imprisonment ...
I don't want to say more, but vampire fans will find a lot to like in this. There's some nastiness with leeches that is even cooler when explained, nice dream sequences, excellent stuff with Dracula's three new "brides," solid acting by all involved (although no one in the cast is going to be up for an Oscar, they act to the best of their ability, and Vitamin C is surprisingly good -- those interested in seeing the film for her might want to know that she's the star of the film's brief nude scene) and some good stunts and action sequences. There's also a nifty Biblical origin given for vampires that I quite liked.
There's one or two goofy bits -- are we expected to believe streets in New Orleans' French Quarter are EVER totally empty during Mardi Gras, any time of the day or night? -- but overall, it was a nice lightweight vampire flick. Nothing brilliant, but not maddening in its stupidity like "John Carpenter's Vampires."
I'd rate it better than "John Carpenter's Vampires," but below just below "Fright Night" and a littler further below "Lost Boys" and "From Dusk Til Dawn" in terms of lightweight vampire flicks. A solid rental choice. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | Dracula Reborn & Re-Imagined... | Content
| Who do you think of when asked, "Who is the `best of the best' in the horror genre?" I don't know about you, but I would have to say without a doubt, Wes Craven. That's right, the man behind the resurgence of horror films. With hits ranging from `The Nightmare On Elm Street' franchise to the `Scream Trilogy', it's no surprise that when you want to create a hit horror film(s) that you would want the `Master of Terror' either directing or producing. The latter is the case in the popular re-imagining of the big daddy of terror himself, Dracula.
"Dracula 2000" is just like it's title suggests, it's Dracula updated for the new millennium. The story begins when a team of criminals set out to rob a museum and in the process, they steal an incredibly heavy-duty coffin. The criminals presume that there must be something intriguing within this coffin, since it was hidden away in the basement of this museum. However, the criminals get more than they bargained for, as Dracula (pre-"Phantom of the Opera" Gerard Butler) is awakened and begins his reign of terror yet again.
Critics absolutely blasted this film (no surprise there), saying that it was basically a waste of time and does absolutely no justice to the classic Bram Stoker story. While I agree with their point that "Dracula 2000" does not do justice to Bram Stoker's classic novel, Dracula; however, what critics failed to realize was, that this movie never intended to retell Bram Stoker's classic tale. Instead, it was as I stated earlier, a re-imagining of the classic character set in the modern-day.
This film did an interesting job of changing the origins of Dracula, gone are his roots as a conqueror whose loss of a loved one drove him insane, instead the filmmakers completely changed his origin. This change to the origin story (in my opinion) gives a better explanation as to why Dracula fears Christianity and Christian symbolism.
With solid storytelling, good acting, and a modern day setting with a younger, more menacing Dracula, this movie gives the iconic character the facelift that he required to inspire fear into this new generation of movie-goers. "Dracula 2000", though it works as a stand alone film, is the first of a trilogy that has been very good (surprisingly since the two sequels were Direct-to-DVD), and continued to build upon the new origin of Dracula that was created in this film. If you are a fan of the classic Dracula films, or enjoy a good scary monster movie with a good story, then this new Dracula movie, make that `Dracula' franchise is for you.
"Dracula 2000" is rated R for violence, language, and brief nudity/sexuality. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 19, 2005 | | Summary | Sooooo Stupid | Content
| People today they dont care about the story they want Blood and Gore,Sex,Nudity this is a prime example, Dracula is a young hero who is a real ladies man and Professor Van Helsing can't survive on Dracula's Blood after all those years By now he would have became a Vampire This is more of a Sequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula watch it youll see. This piece of Crap spawned 2 Horrible Sequels that I could just Gag myself with a spoon Stick with The Hammer Movies or the Black and White films.Besides Dracula is suposed to be a aristicratic man with a Cape and Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee does the right thing |
| Rating | | | Date | June 16, 2005 | | Summary | Oh, the horror (and not as in scary or good). | Content
| It's sad when someone gets an original concept for an age-old legendary character only to drown it with unimaginative and derivative mush. Dracula 2000 fails in standing out of the crowd mainly because it plays out like every other soulless Hollywood movie we have come to accept, or at least endure. This is sad considering the potential this movie could have had if it went another direction.
The plot seems interesting to an extent with the use of Dracula's original nemesis, Van Helsing, and if the parallels from Bran Stoker's novel stopped there it would have been fine. The problem is they didn't. You will find so many similarities from the original story that it's almost plagiarism. This limits the movie from doing anything truly original. The only thing original was the origins of Dracula, which I will admit is a really neat concept. If only the movie focused more on building up to that instead of trying to retell the Dracula story you would have gotten something much better.
Special effects are a mixed bag. The interesting camera angles and stunts using wires all look great. One of the cooler effects is what they do with a vampire's eyes, which I thought was REALLY cool. Stuff like digital effects, CG animations and other post-production effects are decidedly weak. Also the cinematography definitely looks like a TV movie. This might be due to a small production budget, but if you ask me they should have just done away with the digital effects considering they hurt the rest. While the stunts look good the action still gets cheesy. Fight scenes and other moments where they try and do acrobatic stunts end up falling short.
The characters are one dimensional. There is absolutely no depth in any of them. Even when the script tries to make them seem to have more depth not enough is written in to make it convincing enough. Dracula kind of gives you slightly broader scope in the character near the end, but it wasn't nearly enough to make up for the stereotypical bad guy he's been playing throughout the movie. The plot twists are just as predictable as the characters. To make matters worse there are even a few minor plot holes strewn about (Like how come one minute you are in the middle of a major Mardi Gras crowd and next thing you know the street is empty?)
Dracula 2000 had a few really good and fascinating ideas in it, but unfortunately that's not the direction the move decided to go with. I feel even fans of vampire movies might not even be able to get into this. If you are a die-hard vampire fan and want to hear another interesting origin concept for vampires, AND have no trouble wading through the muck to get to it then you're in for a treat... eventually. |
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