"Love Never Dies."
By Yahoo! Movie User on
Thu, Sep 24, 2009 6:54 PM EDT
The tagline is incredible.
One that is resonant, true, passionante, poignant, and attention-grabbing.
It sums up what a love story of this type should be:
Immortal, transcendental; overcoming every obstascle that comes it's way, it's lovers being able to forgive each others betrayals and human foibles in the name of something larger than themselves.
And this what you expect will be delivered to you as you sit down eagerly to watch this movie based on the greatest vampire novel of all time
(perhaps the only one of its genre worth taking the time to read).
In 1462, Vlad Dracula (Gary Oldman) a Transylvanian nobleman,returns from his victory over the Turks to find his wife (having received false word from the Turks of his death) has commited suicide, and that her soul cannot be saved according to Catholic belief.
Furious he renounces God, desecrates his chapel, and begins greedily drinking the blood flowing from the stone walls (the origins of said blood being unclear).
It then cuts to London 1897, where Jonathan Harker's (Keanu Reeves) plans to marry Mina Murray (Winona Ryder) are put on hold when he is sent to Transylvania to take over as a client Vlad Dracula, (Harker's predecesor Mr. Renfield having gone mysteriously insane).
Dracula needs help with a real-estate acquisition (he wishes to buy Carfax Abbey in London), and this is Harker comes in.
Harker finds Transilvanya to be dark and unsettling, and his encounter with the Count only worsens his deepening anxiety.
The acquisition goes smoothly, however, and Jonathan Harker begins to think all his worries and suspicions may have been unfounded...
Then, Dracula sees the photograph of Mina Murray (an exact replica of the wife he lost years before), and realizes she has been
re-encarnated, and that the time has come to reclaim his love.
He leaves Jonathan at the mercy of three or four "vamps" who suck his blood continuously (but don't kill him as food is very scarce),
and travels to London in a coffin where he undergoes a transformation: From a wrinkled old man to the young and vibrant one he was before his wife's death.
In London, Mina Murray awaits anxiously for her fiance to return, and spends a season with her rich friend Lucy Westenra (a terrific Sadie Frost) in order to make the time go faster.
Lucy is bold and flirtatous, and has three marriage proposals: One from a Texan (Bill Campbell). One from a Doctor (Richard E. Grant). And one from a nobleman (Cary Elwes) whom she accepts.
When Dracula emerges in London, he immediately prays on the vivacious, lovely Lucy.
He sentences her to "living death", and as the days lead up to her wedding, her behaviour grows more and more strange. So much so that Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (The also terrific Anthony Hopkins) is sent for, and immediately identifies the problem.
"It's Nosferatu." he says.
Meanwhile, Dracula has set upon conquering Mina Harker, confident in making her forget all about Jonathan.
Abraham Van Helsing's carachter is a good one becuase it injects a little bit of humor in this otherwise dreary story which too restrained, and passionless to the point of being smothering.
Mina and Dracula's dialogue is mushy to the point of being melodramatic, and the relationship between them is too restrained.
The never consummate their affair.
Mina drops Dracula the second she finds out Jonathan is alive...and runs off to Hungary to marry him, leaving Dracula to sob over a letter saying she will never see him again.
The viewer can't help but wonder:
This is passion?
This is eternal love?
On a more positive note, I must say I liked the differences the movie had from the book.
I thought that for once, the ideas served to improve the story.
The idea of Mina being Elisabeth's
re-encarnation was a good one as was her being romantically involved with Dracula...
And it would've been great if they had followed through on these things, instead of leaving them to die in the cocoon of English propriety and correctness that ruled that era.
Forbidden passion is what this story really needed. Forbidden passion. And lust. That would've made it a masterpiece.
Though Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder are perfect for their roles, Gary Oldman is (I'm sorry to say) horribly miscast for his part. Though he succeeds in playing the part, it is a badly written carachter, to which he fails to bring any passion. And it is the same with the carachter of Mina Murray (though in her case it's more forgivable).
I don't think the actors had any chemistry which added to the problem of lifelessness throught the movie. And though the supporting cast is excellent (their carachters belieable and sometimes funny), and the idea for this story is a great one, no amount of "My love,my love" is going to make up for what a love story that is without passion and without any real fire at its core.
It's too bad. It could've been immortal. Instead it's just a little engine that could've gotten there but never did.
One that is resonant, true, passionante, poignant, and attention-grabbing.
It sums up what a love story of this type should be:
Immortal, transcendental; overcoming every obstascle that comes it's way, it's lovers being able to forgive each others betrayals and human foibles in the name of something larger than themselves.
And this what you expect will be delivered to you as you sit down eagerly to watch this movie based on the greatest vampire novel of all time
(perhaps the only one of its genre worth taking the time to read).
In 1462, Vlad Dracula (Gary Oldman) a Transylvanian nobleman,returns from his victory over the Turks to find his wife (having received false word from the Turks of his death) has commited suicide, and that her soul cannot be saved according to Catholic belief.
Furious he renounces God, desecrates his chapel, and begins greedily drinking the blood flowing from the stone walls (the origins of said blood being unclear).
It then cuts to London 1897, where Jonathan Harker's (Keanu Reeves) plans to marry Mina Murray (Winona Ryder) are put on hold when he is sent to Transylvania to take over as a client Vlad Dracula, (Harker's predecesor Mr. Renfield having gone mysteriously insane).
Dracula needs help with a real-estate acquisition (he wishes to buy Carfax Abbey in London), and this is Harker comes in.
Harker finds Transilvanya to be dark and unsettling, and his encounter with the Count only worsens his deepening anxiety.
The acquisition goes smoothly, however, and Jonathan Harker begins to think all his worries and suspicions may have been unfounded...
Then, Dracula sees the photograph of Mina Murray (an exact replica of the wife he lost years before), and realizes she has been
re-encarnated, and that the time has come to reclaim his love.
He leaves Jonathan at the mercy of three or four "vamps" who suck his blood continuously (but don't kill him as food is very scarce),
and travels to London in a coffin where he undergoes a transformation: From a wrinkled old man to the young and vibrant one he was before his wife's death.
In London, Mina Murray awaits anxiously for her fiance to return, and spends a season with her rich friend Lucy Westenra (a terrific Sadie Frost) in order to make the time go faster.
Lucy is bold and flirtatous, and has three marriage proposals: One from a Texan (Bill Campbell). One from a Doctor (Richard E. Grant). And one from a nobleman (Cary Elwes) whom she accepts.
When Dracula emerges in London, he immediately prays on the vivacious, lovely Lucy.
He sentences her to "living death", and as the days lead up to her wedding, her behaviour grows more and more strange. So much so that Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (The also terrific Anthony Hopkins) is sent for, and immediately identifies the problem.
"It's Nosferatu." he says.
Meanwhile, Dracula has set upon conquering Mina Harker, confident in making her forget all about Jonathan.
Abraham Van Helsing's carachter is a good one becuase it injects a little bit of humor in this otherwise dreary story which too restrained, and passionless to the point of being smothering.
Mina and Dracula's dialogue is mushy to the point of being melodramatic, and the relationship between them is too restrained.
The never consummate their affair.
Mina drops Dracula the second she finds out Jonathan is alive...and runs off to Hungary to marry him, leaving Dracula to sob over a letter saying she will never see him again.
The viewer can't help but wonder:
This is passion?
This is eternal love?
On a more positive note, I must say I liked the differences the movie had from the book.
I thought that for once, the ideas served to improve the story.
The idea of Mina being Elisabeth's
re-encarnation was a good one as was her being romantically involved with Dracula...
And it would've been great if they had followed through on these things, instead of leaving them to die in the cocoon of English propriety and correctness that ruled that era.
Forbidden passion is what this story really needed. Forbidden passion. And lust. That would've made it a masterpiece.
Though Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder are perfect for their roles, Gary Oldman is (I'm sorry to say) horribly miscast for his part. Though he succeeds in playing the part, it is a badly written carachter, to which he fails to bring any passion. And it is the same with the carachter of Mina Murray (though in her case it's more forgivable).
I don't think the actors had any chemistry which added to the problem of lifelessness throught the movie. And though the supporting cast is excellent (their carachters belieable and sometimes funny), and the idea for this story is a great one, no amount of "My love,my love" is going to make up for what a love story that is without passion and without any real fire at its core.
It's too bad. It could've been immortal. Instead it's just a little engine that could've gotten there but never did.
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