Movie Review: Bram Stoker's Dracula (Part 3)

What a horrible night to have a curse. And I'm cursed to finish reviewing this stupid movie.

I feel...

Okay. So I've gotten this far without saying much about Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing. It's not necessarily a bad performance, it's just really off-putting. I mean let's consider our two most iconic portrayals of the character- Edward Van Sloan in the 1931 film and Peter Cushing in the Hammer series. Van Sloan played Van Helsing as a solid center of moral authority; Cushing played him as a determined and inquisitive scientist. Hopkins (who we're used to playing subtle and deliberate characters) portrays him as animated and over-the-top. It's really pretty jarring. It's like seing Samuel L. Jackson trying to play subtle, it's like "Come on, man! Do what you're best at!".

Anyway, Van Helsing both narrates and acts...drunk. At Lucy's funeral he decides to tell her bereaved suitors that he needs surgical knives to mutilate her corpse (presumably with science). Well that's tactful. That's like showing up to your best friend's wedding and saying "Hey, why don't you give me 15 minutes to grope the bride before she walks up the aisle."

We also get more idiocy from Winona describing how (but never WHY) she is in love with Dracula. This is the worst part of an already bad movie. Seriously, one of the funniest lines in the movie when Keanu, sounding more Ted-like than ever says, "It is the man himself! HE'S GROWN YOUNG!" To which I can only add- BOGUS.

We then switch back to Van Helsing and the Three Stooges as they raid Lucy's tomb. The fact that the ludicrous amount of blood in this scene makes it hilarious is rather sad, because it's otherwise a great set and very nicely put together scene with Lucy looking creepier than...well creepier than Gary Oldman EVER is in this film. The icing on the cake is Cary Elwes screaming his guts out like Reb Brown while hammering the stake in.

And then the Stooges decide to strike at Dracula in his bachelor pad. Meanwhile, Dracula is out and about as Winona is taken up to Seward's Sanitarium for safety. In a room with glass doors and open windows, as Dracula emerges as (what I assume is foul-smelling) green gas. Seriously? Why not just have Dracula traveling as a river of brown sewage to fully drive the point that this film is a piece of malodorous shit home?

He also kills off the already completely peripheral character of Renfield.  Yep. Plot point over.

And following comes the most uncomfortable scene in the movie. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I would kill to be watching Manos: The Hands of Fate. I want to be anywhere but here.

Have you ever wanted to see Gary Oldman as Dale Earndhart and Winona Ryder humping each other in period costume? Well, you sick f***, THIS IS YOUR LUCKY DAY! We get Dracula rambling on about how "nobody can love secksay old me" and then Winona starts slapping him in anger. Not viciously, more like that scene in Blazing Saddles with "You brute! you brute! You vicious brute!"

And then Oldman's shirt comes off. And it gets even more drawn out and uncomfortable. Seriously, this scene seems to go on for ages. To borrow a line from the movie, you will spend oceans of time wishing you were anywhere else in the world. To say nothing of how, for an allegedly Romantic character how rapey Dracula comes across as. Which includes Dracula's O-face and then a big hug. AWWW.

Then the Marx Brothers storm the room and Dracula turns into a Bat-Creature that looked far less silly in the 8-bit Castlevania. Gary Oldman's giant forehead, seriously. And then he becomes a big ole pile of rats. While Winona whimpers "Unclean". You speak for every sane person who just watched that scene, Winona Ryder. 

So then Dracula flees England and we get more Keanu narration (haha, BYOODA-pest) as the Merry Pranksters give chase, attempting to cut him off at the pass (I hate that cliche!) by taking a train. They split up for some reason, Mina and Van Helsing heading to Castle Man-Taking-Painful-Dump ahead of the Stooges. This leads to more bizarre and discomforting cinema as Mina starts gyrating and um...stuff, apparently under the influence of Dracula's Bride-Skanks. She then comes onto Van Helsing.

WHAT.

And then attacks him.

THE F***?

I don't know what happened. It was neither sexy or scary. But it ends with Hopkins pushing a Nilla Wafer onto Winona's forehead and lighting a circle of fire around her. FIRE, FIRE, heheheh. And...the brides...kill his horse or something. This movie does so much in silhouette it's hard to figure out what's actually happening and what's just suggested. Anyway, Van Helsing beheads the brides, chucks their heads into a chasm and (I shit you not) yells DRAGO! Yes. Anthony Hopkins in Rocky IV-2: The Hunt For DRAGO-la.

Following this is the only remotely exciting scene in the movie as Robin Hood and his men in tights ride up the mountain shooting at...Dracula's Non-Union Gypsy Labor...while Winona seems to think she's Saruman as she...I don't know. I don't know what in the name of f*** is happening. But this is a pretty decent scene. So I'll let it pass. Although for some reason the Sun keeps rising and setting. Nonsensically.

Then Vigo the Carpathian bursts out of his coffin in what appears to be a robe made of Gold Mylar and he and Mina stagger into the castle to have a little moment. As Dracula has a knife in his heart he starts to...turn into...JESUS? DRACULA...IS...JESUS?

WHAT. THE-

Then she cuts his head off. Dance party! Movie over!