As someone who has never read the book but seen several adaptations of the Dracula mythos I can say that this was not the worst take on it that I’ve seen. That honor is a tie between Dracula in Love and Dracula 2000.
In this movie Drac, Vlad for most of the movie, is a family prince who works too hard, who loves his kid and never stops. With a gentle heart but the sword of a fighter.
Which comes in handy when his childhood friend (whose [Ottoman] Empire has Wallachia under its boot) tells him to send his son and a thousand other boys to join his army.
Now as I said Drac loves his kid, and his people, so he does what any other family prince would do… visit his local cave vampire. The same cave vamp that killed Drac’s two friends and that he barely got away from at the very beginning of the movie.
So Drac asks this cave dweller for The Power and he’s like, “sure, just don’t drink blood like you’ll feel compelled to and you’ll be back to human in 3 days… also there’s a cursey-prophecy that says you will fail then I’ll be able to leave this hole. So hope you lose!”
Drac is confident and desperate so it’s a deal.
Not gonna lie after that it gets a bit boring. Drac has fun turning into a bunch of bats and discovering his powers. Only seeing the downside when he is aware of his wife’s supple neck during sexy times. Then there’s fighting, running in the forests, fighting in the forest, fighting in a monastery or something. Through it all Drac is kind of weak sauce. He waffles between liking The Power and not wanting to other people to find out. Naturally they still do and even though they try and kill him his mission of saving them from the Ottoman Empire remains the same.
In trying to push against the traditional Dracula mythos they went too far in the other direction. The siren song of the dark is what makes things fun and it was utterly missing in this film. It was very obvious that Vlad/Dracula were meant to be a sympathetic underdog figure. And that is… a take. My main, not complaint but rather observation, is that they made him a bit of a wimp. Luke Evans, bless him, does what he can, however there is only so much “I love my wife and kid” emoting I can take before I start wondering…
Spoiler(?) there wasn’t anything else and in my list of gripes this one is probably the biggest. Other issues include, why is everyone british except Dominic Cooper (who still sounds british but it has another intonation laid on top) and what is the significance of the cave vamp? None of these questions have answers and that is fine cause the movie isn’t that deep.
It’s about the fights, the bats, and how much Drac loves his wife. I wasn’t expecting a fluffy origin story but I’m not mad at it either. I liked the costumes and I had no expectations, so I literally couldn’t lose.
