So another generation and another adaptation of the Prince of Darkness himself - Count Dracula.
Considering that 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula was an extremely tough act to follow with the typescript and the stellar casting of Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins along with Richard E Grant and Wynona Ryder being as faithful to the original book by Bram Stoker the movie told a very compelling romantic story about a very dark and horrific fictional character where are you still regard him as this very dark and intimidating character and yet you peel the layers away and you'll get to understand the Motives of what the character went through and why he went to the lengths of gaining immortality by feeding on the blood of the living and Crossing oceans of time to reach his love who is now reincarnated as Mina Harker. So 22 years later and universal are taking another stab at it (no pun intended) when you take a new Direction on a character being led by the very talented Luke Evans of which some of you may remember as the character of Irwin Shaw from Fast and Furious 6 or Fast 6. I went into this with an open mind rather than do as most would do and have this as an open and closed case of all it's not as good as the 1992 movie, because I decided to judge this movie up on its own merits rather than wait up against something that was already established and iconic. I like the idea of mixing the real historical figure of Vlad Tepes with the fictional character of Count Dracula himself or which is actually based upon Vlad the Impaler. Other the movie didn't exactly perform the way it would have liked at the box office many critics and fans alike heavily praised Luke Evans his performance as the titular character - you can really see the energy and emotion that look is actually pouring into this performance because you forget while watching this movie that it's actually look when what you're actually seeing is this very complex character the put the needs of his people before himself even if that meant sacrificing his humanity and becoming this creature of the dark that has been very popular for many decades. I find it interesting that I am once again seeing Charles Dance in another movie about vampires now whether he was doing this purely for the paycheck or he has an affinity for playing these type of Gothic rolls remains to be seen. But I will give the man his due he did actually perform the role of the master vampire with a lot of conviction there's this very dark and creepy figure that actually offers Vlad this chance to have the power that he so crazy in order to save his people which in turn would actually allow his own freedom to happen if he ever fed on the blood of the living. Because the deal between Vlad and the master vampire is that if Vlad tastes human blood within the 3 days then he keeps powers and he will lose his humanity and the master vampire will be set free from his present that is the cave from which the person that gave him the power of a vampire has doomed him to stay in. It should also be noted that there is a word on a wire going around that the master vampire is actually the Roman emperor Caligula... Whether you want to believe that is entirely up to you because I find that rather ridiculous and asinine. I mean why can't it just be a situation where it's a guy that wanted immortality and didn't have any particular noble title or heritage? The production was a real high value where you look at the sets and you look at the way that this movie was short especially from the sword fight even to the visual effects where you see glad slowly changing into this creature and where he heals himself from various wounds like when he's using his powers for the first time on a rock and his hand heals her or to the way that his skin is healing up for after being exposed by sunlight if these little attention to detail that really does make this movie look worthwhile. It's also interesting to have Dracula portrayed in the light of the of a protagonist wear for so many decade we have been so used to him being the antagonist because he is the king of all vampires why would you pick this guy as a hero? But that's said with the way that Luke portrays this character you don't even care that he is supposed to be a bad guy when he does the role of a good guy so well they're just happens to have the name Dracula attached to it. The showdown between him and Dominic Cooper who plays the role of the Turkish Sultan is really well choreographed and Dominic is such a good actor at being able to make you hate him as the bad guy even though he is the human character and Evans's role is that of a man turning from a human into a vampire. The ending is Bittersweet where Vlad continues to live on throughout the ages centuries after his supposed death after insuring his son survival after the turtle defeated along with slaying his own vampiric kind in order to justify the ends to the means of what he was looking to do and we see him in modern times looking at Mina Harker who is a reincarnated version of his wife and we also see the master vampire in the undergrowth now wearing a very expensive and suave suit looking to recruit Vlad. Now this was supposed to be the starting point of the Monster Verse which would have been their own version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which would have seen the classic monster horror movie characters teaming up - but the question is,what? This is something that I have questioned about the dark universe as universe or have chosen to call it and it doesn't really go into a lot of detail as to what they would be teaming up to fix it just comes across as being very vague and ambiguous. And what's sad about this is that this movie is now considered non-canon with the monster universe which kind of restarted with 2017 reboot of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise and that thing was just a complete disaster. As a guy who occasionally watches horror movies but does love his action adventure movies I can highly recommend this and it's nowhere near as bad as the critics would have you believe. Because at the end of the day the only opinion that should matter to you about your favourite movie, song, video game or even your favourite book - is your own. The links to purchase this movie are below and I thank you for taking the time to read this.
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