Rating: 
Summary: Great movie.......
Review: ....but a pity about the lack of special features. Nice ploy, though. Columbia Tristar must have realised that this is a favourite among many a viewer and decided to release this version first. We'll see another 'special edition' in a year or so. Trust me, wait a while.
Rating: 
Summary: Blood and Sex Sell Well
Review: Yes, both blood and sex can do wonders for a film at the box office, so when you can combine them in a movie like "Bram Stoker's Dracula", of course you'll have a hit. You may not, however, have a truly good movie, but that's another matter.This was a somewhat uncomfortably sex-filled movie, so you'll have to be mindful of who you're seeing it with, especially that scene when the beastly vampire is having his way with a willing maiden in the garden. Pass the smelling salts over to Aunt Bee for that one! Anthony Hopkins gets my vote for best sell-out ham acting since Laurence Olivier's Van Helsing from the Frank Langella version. Once those Brits get that "Sir" title, they just go to pot! It is interesting, though, to see a sympathetic portrayal of Count Dracula, but you see, that's NOT "Bram Stoker's" version, so this film ought rightly to have been named, "Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula" to give credit where it is due. Sink your teeth into this one, if taking all this into consideration, you're game.
Rating: 
Summary: Great adaptation of the book! Just a flat out good movie!
Review: This movie goes right by the book, which is something I liked because I loved the book. The performances are great, the set design is wonderful, and the special effects are nice and weird. Dracula's shadow is one of the freakiest things in this movie. My friends and I had a scary movie night, watched it, and loved it! It's a horror movie and a love story all rolled into one. Buy it today. You won't be dissapointed! One of Francis Ford Copolla's greatest films!
Rating: 
Summary: SO BAD!
Review: Ok, I admit that I did not like the fact that they put Bram Stoker's name on this, but that is NOT why it gets one star. I would not have minded a plot change, but it was just so stupid! Why would Mina EVER fall in love with Dracula, after he attacked her in the movie theater, or wherever? And ok, he has a reason to go after Mina, so why does he ignore her and go after Lucy first? The worst part of the whole thing were the special effects - I loved the lightning and blue flames John saw, and the fact that Arthur's blood (when they were giving it to Lucy) was see-through. It looked like cranberry juice. BLOOD is opaque. And one of my overall favorite parts was when Keanu Reeves's hair kept changing color - black to gray, fine, he's been through a lot - but then, when he sees Mina licking the air (he can't see Dracula) IT'S TURNED WHITE! And then, at the very end, it's gray again! Most of the accents (John's, Mina's, and Quincy's especially) were horrendous. This movie's only redeeming factor was that it had Cary Elwes in it ;)
Rating:
Summary: Dracula: A love story
Review: That's what it should have been titled, despite all the gore and violence shown, because this movie was so much more a romance than horror. That being said, I wholly praise Coppola's direction in his ability to skillfully blend these two seemingly polar elements together. As for the cast, I thought the principal actors were perfect: Noone but Gary Oldman could have played Dracula the way he did--he masterfully imbued the character with a combination of longing, anguish, vengefulness, and sympathy. Winona Ryder's sublime persona and doe-eyed, ethereal beauty was nicely showcased in her performance of Elisabeta/Mina, Dracula's dual, reincarnated loves. Flame-haired Sadie Frost was very good as Mina's best friend Lucy in combining devlish wickedness with sweetness. I had just a minor problem with what seemed the one-dimensional, stereotypical trio of Lucy's suitors consisting of cardboard-cutout figures: the intense physician, the stiff Englishman, and the randy cowboy. Anthony Hopkins I thought gave a painfully hammy nevertheless hilariously side-splitting performance as Van Helsing. However, these flaws are negligible in the scope of such a breathtaking film. If you are a horror fan, this movie will not disappoint--it is literally a gorgeous visual cocktail of blood, violence, and special effects. However, if you are a dedicated romance fan as I am, this rates right up there with other heartwrenching films, films that seemingly couldn't be more different on the surface from this one, films such as "A Place in the Sun," "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," and "Dangerous Liaisons," among others, but of course what they all obviously have in common is the theme of doomed love. I'll tehrefore end this by saying that this would be the perfect movie for a couple to watch--it has enough blood and violence to satisfy any man, and lots of romance to satisfy any woman. And if that weren't enough, the lush cinematography and unforgettably haunting yet dreamy soundtrack are reason enough to pick this up!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful !!!
Review: This movie is beautiful in the sense of romanticism. Dracula is so human, not a monster, but an immortal being with strong emotions. Ryder's acting is great, and, oh boy, that Lucy is hot ...!! The movie is strong, there is too much blood but (anyway) the movie is supposed to have blood. Great movie! I love it. The final scene is very moving.
Rating:
Summary: Not Bram Stoker's, But still a fun movie to watch!
Review: I give it three and a half stars.The other reviewers here are absolutely correct. This should NOT have been called "Bram Stoker's" Dracula. If you are looking for a faithful screen adaptation of the novel, this is not it. Another point I agree with is that Keanu Reeves AND Winona Ryder's English accents were laughable at best. But, If you are looking for a visually rich and charmingly campy bit of fun, this is your movie. It seems to me that Francis Ford Coppola really loved (as I do) the old horror movies from the 1930's and set out to pay homage to them. I think Gary Oldman does a smashing job of playing Dracula. You could tell he was really having a ball with this part. Flaws aside, this movie is thoroughly enjoyable and fun to watch. I didn't regret purchasing this movie in the least.
Rating:
Summary: Really Ford Coppola's Dracula
Review: I am not one of those purists who demands that movies be the exact duplicates of any novel they adapt (see Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu instead if you insist on such purity). There are, after all, some things that work in novels that don't work in movies and vice versa. But this film's title is highly misleading. As it has been noted before, Coppola takes too many liberties with the story. Some of the changes are actually an improvement on the novel, including the way Coppola brings out the suppressed eroticism of Stoker's novel and the many improvements made to the character of Van Helsing (who was one dimensional in the novel). However, other liberties (e.g., showing Dr. Seward inject himself with morphine for 10 seconds then ignoring this subplot for the rest of the movie) are unecessary and pointless and add nothing to the characters or plot, and others (the whole melodramatic and soap-operaesque love story that derails half the movie) detract from the story to a huge extent. It also seems that for every good point there is a bad point. Some of the visuals, for example, are amazing, but the techniques sometimes get in the way of the storytelling (especially during Dracula's ocean cruise, a chilling part of the novel largely cut in order to make room for the ridiculous love story). The casting of Tom Waits as Renfield is brilliant, but his subplot was also badly compressed so that, e.g., Dracula could make a speech about Absinthe. Anthony Hopkins is superb as the improved Van Helsing, but Keanu Reeves' terrible performance is absolutely excruciating to watch and Winona Ryder does a mediocre job largely thanks to her poor attempts at an English accent. And Gary Oldman is great in his title role and, admittedly the substandard love story does give him more room to develope the character, but this does not fully redeem the new storyline. And Coppola uses visual techniques to add to the story (e.g., Dracula's shadow which seems to act independently of his body), but ironically sticks to the novel's storytelling technique of switching from one character's diary to another for narration in a way that leaves the movie disjointed (it works far better in prose format). If Coppola did stick strictly to the novel, or went to the other extreme and made it entirely his own vision, it could have been a brilliant movie, but instead he creates a mess by trying to accomplish both at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: "Look what your God has done to me."
Review: This is a great movie. It stands on its own as entertainment, but at a deeper level it is much better. First of all, Coppola has made a masterpiece of sound, light and color. This alone would make the movie notable. But more importantly, it is a deep analysis of the dracula myth. Its title is appropriate because most of the movie follows the book more closely than any dracula movie so far. Yet it also reflects the cinematic tradition: many lines and scenes are taken exactly from past movies--fans of those will appreciate the recognition they receive here. This is a movie about movies. Many of the tricks rely on the visual limits of the camera and the movie screen. Most of the scenes reflect the creators' consciousness of past movies in the tradition, whether artfully mocking their campiness, including them as background footage in a cinema, or reproducing them detail for detail. What makes all this great is not merely imitation, but the new and deeper meanings they receive from their unique context in this movie. That unique context is the romance between Dracula and Mina, the victim. Only a few new scenes (not from the book or any other movie) establish this relationship, and they add immeasurable depth to many other standard scenes and the movie as a whole. Of course this relationship has always been a part of the analysis of the Dracula myth, and numerous films (including the pornographic ones and especially Kinski's "Nosferatu the Vampyre") have made it explicit. But this film presents that relationship with more depth, meaning and subtlety than any so far. The Dracula tradition has always dealth with feminine sexuality and power, subtly or overtly. In 1979, Kinski recast Mina (aka Lucy) as the heroine of the story, bringing salvation to Dracula. This movie's unique twist brings together these two issues and instantly turns Stoker's helpless, gothic heroine on her head. This is true to the subversive spirit of the gothic novel, which always hints at the female victim's complicity and desire for the sexually powerful villian; but now (as in Kinsky) that desire emerges as a force of salvation; and for the first time we see Dracula as a tragic hero redeemed by her. (You'll have to see it to believe it.) However, in my opinion the movie's greatest genius is thematic. Fall and redemption are the themes of the movie. Sacramental (eucharistic, baptismal and matrimonial) and scriptural references are skillful and deep; they saturate the imagery and script of the movie. (Why does the perfume drip upwards? Refer to the theme.) Even the subtitle, "Love Never Dies," shows this theme. The story is the count's progression from Christ-figure (in the opening scences), to anti-Christ, and then his redemption through Nina's love, made apparent in the icon in the movie's final scene. The theme of redemption transforms every detail of the story; but apart from the opening and closing scenes, this movie follows the book more closely than any that I've seen. Even the presentation of the book--as a series of journal entries, newspaper articles, phonograph recordings, and so on--has been preserved. Achieving such fidelity and transformation at once is simply ingenious. (The themes of drug use and alternate psychological states and the tension between science and superstition are also explored; but I don't understand them well enough to comment.) This is by far the best Dracula movie yet, a perfectly told fairy tale; simultaneously entertainment and art at their finest.
Rating:
Summary: Mikey's Review
Review: Bram Stoker's Dracula is a terrific masterpiece! It's got all the hottest stars in it of right now. Keanu Reeves is a very talented actor and having him work with Wynona Ryder was amazing to see. It shows how a woman can love not only nice, gentle people, but also someone who may be a monster but still is nice and gentle. Anthony Hopkins was okay in the movie too, though his part was small. I actually think Gary Oldman and Wynona Ryder should have won an award for their roles. The costume design was great and I'm so glad the movie won the award for best Costume Design. It's not really all that scary but it is always fun to watch. To see how Dracula can seduce any woman he pleases. It's sad to see Gary Oldman curse God for his wife killing herself. That right there was true love and nothing can change that.
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