DRACULA 2000

Directed By: Patrick Lussier
Written By: Joel Soisson (Rewrites By: Scott Derrickson & Ehren Kruger
Story By: PAtrick Lussier & Joel Soisson
Cinematography By: Peter Pau
Editor: Patrick Lussier & Peter Devaney Flanagan

Cast: Gerard Butler, Johnny Lee Miller, Sean Patrick Thomas, Christopher Plummer, Omar Epps, Justine Waddell, Jennifer Esposito, Danny Masterson, Lochlyn Munro, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Shane West, Jeri Ryan, Nathan Fillion

This film is like pop music. It has the ingredients to interest you at first with a hit single/preview that looks good but when you sit back and actually watch/listen you realize how bad it really is in quality also, Then you realize you have been hoodwinked. Sure it was good enough at the time with all of it's up to the minute refrences but it ages badly.

I'm giving this film too muich credit the preview never looked that good, though with a title like DRACULA 2000 i should have suspected it was going to be cheesy. I went into it knowing this hoping for some trashy fun. I was stillleft disappointed the film has a then young cast of at the time Recognizable up and coming talent to get the audience to see a film with no real recognizable star. Few of the actors last that long in the film furthur then a cameo. The Film Features Gerard butler before he buffed up. Here he is skinny and looks just like another pretty boy.

For the main story it has a bunch of thieves who steal from a tomb that includes a coffin that awakens dracula who is in the tomb. He soon slaughters then in route to america where draucla see's a woman who he believes to be the reincarnation of his lost love and as he slowly seduces her. hr transforms her into a vampire. A vampire hunter and her ex-Boyfriend try to stop him and hunt him as Dracula grows his defenses and builds a undead army from her friends.

The film is one of those could have been's but it feels rushed and simple minded. Which it should since it went from production to being released in six months. The film has too many quick cuts. The action which there is a bunch of isn't even that interesting. This is a movie with little to no personality. The effects are just passable. It's a reminder of what used to be passable for mainstream horror around the time it was made. The film lives up to it's title. There are alot of CGI digital effects which are more distracting in it's fakeness then actually being scary or awe inducing.

The only reason this film is not a complete failure isit's unflappable energy. IT's never slow and i like the cast. I just wish they were in a better film. I can see why they signed on the potential is here but never quite utilized.

GRADE: D