Are you looking for a DVD to watch? Do you like vampire movies that have a lot of action? Then you should consider Wes Craven’s Dracula 2000. Dracula 2000 was directed by Patrick Lussier, and stars Gerard Butler as Dracula, Justine Waddell as Mary Heller, Christopher Plummer as Abraham Van Helsing, and Johnny Lee Miller as Simon Sheppard.
The trailers for Dracula 2000 lead the viewer to expect a movie that is a modern adaptation of Dracula that is filled with a lot of high octane action. The movie positively lives up to the expectation of lots of action.
Dracula 2000 revolves around a group of high tech thieves robbing Abraham Van Helsing of what they hope to be a lucrative haul. What they end up with is a coffin with the remains of Dracula. This portion of the movie is like a modern high tech heist film with some very good action scenes.
Of course the coffin is opened and the thousand year old Dracula is awoken, and that’s when the mayhem begins in earnest. Dracula’s initial on-screen appearance is a scene in the cargo area of an aircraft in flight. What ensues is a great action battle scene on the plane where Dracula begins to build his vampire clan.
Unfortunately, the plot of the movie is conflicted. Much of the vampire storyline of Dracula 2000 is like a 1960’s or 70’s campy vampire tale. The vampires created by Dracula have enormous powers right from the beginning. While this plot device may annoy vampire story purists, it certainly aids many of the movie’s high octane action scenes. On the downside the young vampires’ enormous powers do contradict much of the vampire legend that has been created in modern fiction.
If Dracula 2000 followed this type of storytelling throughout the movie it could be counted as a notable action packed slightly campy vampire tale. But the end of the movie completely shifts gears quite suddenly when it takes on a heavy religious plot line. Consequently, Dracula 2000’s plot was sufficiently conflicted that the movie never quite develops its own character as a vampire tale. Instead, it is a combination of several types of different vampire stories. These conflicts make the movie far less than it could have been as a vampire story.
But the one consistency throughout the entire movie is the action and violence. Dracula 2000 definitely earned its R rating with the violence. But the movie’s many fast and lively action scenes made up for the plot inconsistencies, and made Dracula 2000 a fun movie to watch.
So if you are looking for an academy award worthy movie to watch, skip Dracula 2000 as it doesn’t even come close to this status. Likewise, if you are looking for a serious vampire story in the vein of Interview with the Vampire, you will be disappointed. But if what you are looking for is a fun action packed movie to watch for pure entertainment check out Dracula 2000 as it will meet this expectation.