Garoo

Which is Dracula 2001 for the French audience, so that the title sounds even more ridiculous than the original version. Such a title that I started watching it only because I had really, really nothing else to do.

And yet, the script is incredibly intelligent, for a vampire movie. Really. The ideas for bringing Dracula, Van Helsing and the whole plot into the twenty-first century are all excellent. And, by implying that Bram Stoker was inspired by the real facts when he wrote his book, the authors allow themselves to make up a new Dracula, whose origins are stronger, more spectacular—more worthy of his legend. I’m sure it’s not the first time someone makes up this new origin, but it’s still brought up very well, and well used too.

It’s too bad the movie is still not a masterpiece. The lengths are not unbearable, the photography is nice, but there’s something missing. An inspired director? Or maybe charismatic actors. Yes, that’s it. Dracula and Van Helsing aren’t particularly bad, they’re just not up to the characters—it’s not easy to have enough charisma to play the most evil creature on the planet, and his arch-nemesis. It’s a pity, because the movie is well done, the locations are well used, the special effects are globally good (except the smoke, that is visibly expelled by a couple of pumps instead of looking like a sentient entity, and the blood-injected eyes of the vampires, which is a ridiculous idea) and, as I said, the plot is filled with great inventions.

I have just an objection.

Don’t read the following if you don’t want to be spoiled to the end of the movie. Well, the most predictable part of the end.

I have just an objection, I said. Most of the times when directors decide to translate a great myth into the current times (be it Dracula, or mummies, or whatever), they feel obliged to kill them (again) at the end of the movie. I’ve already made the same comment about Buffy: I find it a bit selfish to go to such lengths tu ressuscitate monsters, and not leave them alive afterwards. It’s like ragging (coming straight from my French to English dictionary, so I’ll have to hope it’s the right translation) surviving generation after generation: Oh well, I’ve had to make up that whole theory to revive Dracula in 2000, I’m not gonna make it any easier for the other writers, just do your homework if you want to use him too. I find it a pity because it prevents any other movie from happening in the same universe as this one. Though it would only consolidate the movie’s reality. It’s not only selfish, it’s a bad calculation.

By the way, I hope Virgin paid a good deal of money to be featured in half the scenes. Is this a movie or a commercial? Oh, I know the difference: during commercial breaks, there are several different brands, not just one for an hour and a half.