Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Tale feels like an adaptation that assumes you already know the legend so well, that it doesn’t need to fill out its story as well as its costuming. Sure, Dracula is one of the most over-adapted characters in horror history, and Besson treats that familiarity as a shortcut rather than a challenge. What we get is a polished, expensive-looking project that never quite answers the most important question: why Dracula, and why now?
Besson has been clear that he sees the count as a tragic romance first and a horror story second. Groundbreaking. While the idea isn’t new, still, it isn’t automatically wrong. Here, Prince Vlad’s transformation from grieving husband to cursed immortal happens swiftly and broadly. His wife dies, he turns on God, and he’s condemned to wander the earth waiting for her reincarnation. Classic. It’s big and bold on paper, but Besson rushes through the emotional groundwork, leaving the tragedy feeling more like a pitch than something we can feel.
This version of Dracula follows a path audiences have walked many times before: An ancient vampire relocates to a major city, crosses paths with a pretty woman who resembles his lost love, and attracts the attention of people determined to stop him. Besson doesn’t do much to reshape that arc or surprise us along the way. When new ideas are introduced, they often feel like surface-level and timid additions rather than choices that deepen the cut of story or its core romance.
Visually, Besson’s vision is reliably loaded with detail. The costumes are elaborate, the sets are packed with period flourishes, and the production clearly had money to burn. But for a gothic horror film, Dracula: A Love Tale is feels somewhat lacking in atmosphere. Scenes are frequently too shiny and bright and too clean. It drains them of tension. Instead of shadowy unease, we get a glossy feel that makes everything feel a bit flat and artificial.
That artificiality becomes hard to ignore once the film leans into its more fantastical side. The introduction of animated gargoyle helpers is meant to add flair, but I was mostly just confused by the choice. They aren’t scary, and they aren’t particularly funny either, landing somewhere in an awkward middle space that highlights the film’s biggest issue. Besson never settles on a tone. The movie keeps bouncing between tragic romance, gothic horror, and playful fantasy without fully committing to any of them.
Caleb Landry Jones gives the role his full effort, but his Dracula never quite takes control of the film. There’s intensity here and there, but little of the charisma or threat that usually defines the character. Dracula often feels like he’s being pushed along by the plot rather than driving it. Christoph Waltz, meanwhile, brings his obvious and canned energy as a talkative vampire-hunting priest. He’s engaging in short stretches, but the performance leans so hard on his usual persona that it feels more like a cameo than a fully realized character.
For a movie that puts love at its center, the romance is surprisingly thin. We’re constantly told that Vlad and his lost love share an eternal bond, but the film rarely shows us enough of that relationship to make it convincing. Outside of a strong early moment, their connection never deepens in a way that supports the film’s emotional weight. By the time the story reaches its drawn-out finale, the tragedy feels distant rather than devastating.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula worked because its romance was inseparable from its danger. Love was obsessive, erotic, and corrupting, and every romantic beat carried the threat of repercussion or damnation. Besson’s film strips all of that that danger away. Here, love is treated as something soft and noble, which makes Dracula feel tragic but never frightening. Without that sense of danger, the romance loses its luster.
While Dracula: A Love Tale might not be a complete disaster: there’s clear craft on display, and flashes of ambition peek through. But in the end, this Dracula feels content to recycle familiar ideas for audineces who need not be reminded of why the story matters. It’s a handsome, overlong film that mistakes recognition as something to help it forward. For a character who has been reimagined countless times, this version is much too safe, and ultimately, forgettable.
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