Dracula Movie Critique – Luc Besson’s Love-Struck Reinterpretation of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Absurd but Engaging

Maybe there is no great enthusiasm for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for polished extravagance. And yet, it has to be said: his lavishly upholstered love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, it could be preferable over Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, like a particular moment that seems to depict a geographic divide between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Clever but Weary Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz embodies a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – it’s surprising he never took on such a part earlier – who arrives in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. The same goes for the sinister Dracula, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Steve Carell’s Gru in the Despicable Me films. This is a part he seemed destined to play.

The Plot: A Chronicle of Longing

Here’s the premise: the vampire lord has been restlessly roaming the globe in torment over four centuries following his rise as one of the undead, a penalty due to his blasphemous mourning after the passing of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). the vampire has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who might be the reincarnation of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman turns out to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to negotiate his land assets and the small picture of the charming Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

Besson’s Handling and Comic Flair

Besson arranges Dracula’s second-act backstory of global roaming wearing flamboyant outfits skillfully, and he is not above providing humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, as well as absurd moments that result after Dracula applies to himself with a specific fragrance during the 1700s in Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online starting December 1st and in disc format starting the twenty-second of December. It plays in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.