Dracula 2000

Year: 2000
Director: Patrick Lussier
Writer: Joel Soisson, Patrick Lussier
Genre: Horror: Vampire

Dracula 2000 is right up there in cinematic worth aside Godzilla 2000. Seriously. The "2000" of the film is that it's a modern take on the whole Dracula tale. There's not a thing wrong with that in theory and it actually starts out kind of cool. We begin the movie in some crazy bank vault with a man who appears to be the grandson of Van Helsing or something of that sort. A troop of highly trained men crack into Van Helsing's safe one night (despite having no clue what's inside it). Apparently, anything worth that much security must be worth zillions of dollars. So they get in there and extract a coffin because they're certainly not going to leave empty-handed. I'm sure you can assume what the coffin contains.

From then on things descend quickly into silliness. Really, the best thing about the film is that we have a hunky Gerard Butler playing Dracula. Beyond that though the film is nearly pure teenage Hollywood drivel. That's not to say there are not things to like about it. For one, it is kind of cool how the characters were modernized. However, the film also seems to be plagued by the worst product placement ever. It seems that stuff was really vile in the late 90s/early 2000s. Virgin Records is pimped so damn much in the movie for no good reason you'd almost think this was a commercial.  Honestly, when Dracula gapes in astonishment at the store for 30 seconds you tend to notice.

If you're just looking for a very simplistic and flashy vampire romp it's not so bad. I doubt the movie was ever really intended to be taken seriously (like say, Bram Stoker's Dracula [1992]). Especially with a name like Dracula 2000 it seems targeted squarely at the kind of audience who goes gaga over graphical splendor and sirens. So, overall the movie wasn't for me.