My local Wal-Mart busted out the vampire movies galore to (I'm sure) jump on the bandwagon of sales for the latest Twilight release. These modern wimpy vampires have little interest for me, but I will say that some of the releases have been most interesting. I've been loading up on some very good cheap movies. Many of these I have on VHS, and this is a good opportunity to add them to the dvd shelf as well.
One of the ones I picked up is Dracula 2000. This is ironic in that alongside the vampire movies, Wal-Mart is also pushing the annual Easter flock of movies, a myriad of Bible adaptations and whatnot. The connection thematically between movies celebrating the resurrection of Christ and movies showing a multitude of darker and more dangerous resurrections is pretty curious indeed. But nowhere is the connection deeper than Dracula 2000.
Now there are spoilers galore below, so if you've not seen this movie I'd hesitate to go on. Get it, it's worth it.
Despite its awful title, Dracula 2000 offers up a tasty vampire brew. The premise is that Abraham Van Helsing (played by Christopher Plummer) has been holding Dracula prisoner for a century, using the vampire's own blood to prolong his own life to make such a thing possible. It seems Van Helsing has an estranged daughter in New Orleans who because of the connection in blood is connected to Dracula as well. A gang of thieves steal Dracula's coffin and he escapes to create new little vampires and to seek his soul mate the daughter of Van Helsing. He is opposed by Van Helsing and a young man who works for him.
That's the plot in a nutshell, and there are a ton of sleek and clever gimmicks adapting vampire lore. I read a review that suggested this movie didn't make sense. I can't figure what the reviewer meant, unless he's a moviegoer who doesn't pay attention to subtext. This movie makes more sense than most vampire movies, as there's a strict backstory being adhered to, a secret to be revealed. It's Dracula's secret origin if you will.
He's Judas Iscariot. No Vlad the Impaler here, save perhaps as a role the ultimate betrayer of Christ played for a time. Dracula here is the man who betrayed God and who after a few thousand years still holds a heavy grudge against the humble carpenter and his dad.
This movie reveals its secret nicely and when you see it, you have that neat thing in stories that it all makes a weird sense of sorts. Dracula doesn't fear crosses and holy water and whatnot, he hates them. Silver can hurt him because silver is the burden he bears.
This movie is very well cast. Gerard Butler is Dracula and while a bit too slick in places, he's very much physically capable of playing the part. The vampire chicks are very sexy, and the action is high speed. If anything, that's a knock on this one as the action is almost too over the top to develop a sense of reality to the proceedings. The characters live in a cartoon world a bit and that undermines the empathy for their plight.
But intellectually I like what they tried to do with this one. It's got a neat gimmick and pays off neatly.
Rip Off
No comments:
Post a Comment