Best Keanu: “I know now that I am a prisoner.”

Really the best part of Dracula is a brief exchange about 1 hour 46 minutes in, when a near-death Winona Ryder looks at a greying Keanu Reeves and says, “Oh my poor, dear Jonathan. What have I done to you?”

Because you can have a moment where you’re like, “they were so good together in Destination Wedding. Old and cynical. This was back when they were babies.”

I had low expectations for Dracula, but found it oddly enjoyable; it’s a cinematic experience, or would be one if I had seen it in the theatre. It’s visual, strange, and compelling. And despite what reviewers may have said at the time or since, Keanu is not miscast. He and Winona are perfect complements to one another, so if one of them should have been plucked out of this movie, they both should have been — and they are both exactly, movie role speaking, exactly where they belong.

There are also plenty of boobs in this movie, lots of demon-activity-is-synonymous-with-lustful-women action, a la Devil’s Advocate or really any movie of this type that just loves to show boobs for no good reason. Even a young Winona Ryder — 21 when this film was released — almost shows her boobs (she shows plenty of cleavage) as soon as the vampire blood takes over her insides. That’s the purpose of boobs, of course. To let us know when a character is no longer pure.

Like with a few other films in this general thematic area — say, Constantine — I loved Dracula as it began, but eventually lost interest as the story seemed to drag. That’s not the fault of the screenwriter, I suppose, or really anyone’s fault — simply a matter of me not really wanting to spend my time watching people become demons and fight demons and search for demons. Snoozefest!

It always seemed a bit strange to me that Christian symbols — the cross, for example — could fight off vampires. I suppose that’s the mythology, and of course, vampires don’t actually exist. But how could it be that Christianity is “God’s law,” when so much of the world is not Christian? That’s right — I can’t suspend disbelief for a vampire movie, although I can suspend disbelief for The Matrix or a random film where Keanu and Charlize Theron try to have chemistry.

In any event. That’s another one for the books. A note about Keanu’s accent: he doesn’t have one in this film, and neither does Winona. So I totally dismiss the criticism that they couldn’t do decent English accents, because what they’re really doing is playing attractive people in a silly fantasy film about vampires. No dialect coaches needed. Who cares! Did you see the boobs?

May 2022