Dracula 2001

The annoying thing about Dracula 2001 isn’t that it's just a dumb version for the MTV generation. It’s that you go in thinking that's what it'll be, then it starts off quite well, which raises your hopes, before descending into, well, a dumb version for the MTV generation. While director-co-writer Patrick Lussier and screenwriter Joel Soisson (the 'creative force' behind Prophecy III: The Ascent and numerous Dimension Films efforts) attempt to give Bram Stoker's acclaimed fable some fresh twists, they only end up with another generic teen horror flick.

The action is set years after Dracula (Gerald Butler) has been captured and entombed. Dr Van Helsing (Christopher Plummer) uses the vampire's blood to stay alive long enough to find away of killing him. However, when a group of thieves inadvertently release the Count, Van Helsing races to stop his blood-related daughter (Justine Waddell) being harmed, with the help of loyal assistant Simon (Johnny Lee Miller).

As mentioned, this latest take on Vlad has a promising start. We get a nice - if somewhat superfluous - prologue, set in the late 1800's, a slumming-it Plummer near-perfectly cast as Van Helsing (without channelling Peter Cushing) and a suitably early sense of evil as a result of all the layers of thought-out security surrounding Dracula's tomb.

That is until, said evil is released. Yes, there's plenty of killing, death and blood-splattering, but strangely most of the tension dries up once the world's most famous neck-biter arrives following a decent-ish plane massacre. Even stranger though is the fact that a pre-fame Gerry Butler - who was the very definition of imposing as 300's Lionidas – isn’t utilised better by Lussier, who seems to think rock music, a long jacket and slo-mo walks will imbue us with fear.

As you'd expect, there are nods peppered throughout to Stoker's legend (Carfax Abbey, a Doctor named Seward, a victim called Lucy), but the explanation for the titular villain's hatred of Christianity will have many rolling their eyes all the way to Mardi Gras. Had there been more screen time allotted to Plummer's Van Helsing and less to his bland daughter (a perenially-shellshocked Waddell), we could have had an enjoyable romp.

To be fair, Miller is a decent 'hero', reacting credibility to all the madness around him and there are a few hot vamp-babes as eye-candy (Jeri Ryan, take a bow. No, in that vest, seriously do). Still, it's a wonder that anyone will notice them with so much blatant Virgin Megastore advertising all over the place...

It starts off well and Plummer fits nicely, but this is far from the Dracula screen magic that Cushing and Lee started.