Dracula Movie Critique – The French Director’s Romantic Revamp of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Outlandish but Watchable

Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for glossiness and bloat. However, one must admit: his opulently crafted love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and with its B-movie charm, it could be preferable over Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, such as a scene that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Clever but Weary Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz portrays a humorous yet burdened cleric fighting vampires – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. Likewise present is the evil Count Dracula, played by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent similar to Steve Carell’s Gru in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Story: A Saga of Heartbreak

The story is this: the count has traveled ceaselessly the earth in sorrow for hundreds of years after his transformation into a vampire, a consequence due to his blasphemous mourning over the death of his wife, Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has sought relentlessly for a female who might be the return of his lost love. As ill fortune would have it, the lucky lady is revealed as Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who has recently been to Dracula’s fortress to negotiate his land assets and the tiny painting of the charming Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Lighthearted Touch

Besson organizes Dracula’s flashback sequence of global roaming in various outrageous costumes with a sure hand, and he willingly includes giving us funny bits reminiscent of Mel Brooks – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to kill himself after Elisabeta’s death, as well as comical sequences that occur when Dracula applies to himself in a certain perfume during the 1700s in Florence, that renders him irresistible to women. Ridiculous and watchable.

Dracula is on digital platforms from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray starting the twenty-second of December. It screens in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.