Francis Ford Coppola's take on the Dracula tale never quite hits full speed, despite all the best intentions. Reasonably faithful to the original text, and with a careful eye on design and casting, it is hamstrung by a new element to the story, which will be familiar to fans of the Mummy genre, reincarnated love interests.

There are without doubt many good things about this production, but there are also many bad things, and in trying to condense a reasonably hefty text, full of characters, into feature length time we end up with a slightly unwieldy and uncohesive film. Characters come and go, and we scramble from set piece to set piece only for the momentum to be broken up with the interminable romance between Dracula and Mina, and the ending seems a very rushed affair and is quite unsatisfying, leaving a feeling of too many cooks spoiling this bloody broth.

On familiar ground, we are introduced to Jonathan Harker, his fiancee Mina, and friend Lucy. Jonathan is despatched to Transylvania to conclude a property deal with the mysterious Dracula, who is buying up land around London, including Carfax Abbey, a ruin next to the family home of Mina. Dracula's first agent returned to England a madman, his mind broken from his experiences and is now residing in a lunatic asylum.

Dracula imprisons Harker, leaving his vampire brides to feast on him, as he sets sale for England, and Carfax Abbey. On the voyage Dracula kills the crew one by one, before reaching England and setting his sights on Mina, and anyone who stands between them. He first feeds on her friend Lucy, slowly converting her to the undead, despite desperate help from close friends Dr Jack Seward, husband to be Arthur Holmwood, and Texan Quincey P Morris. Baffled by her condition, Seward contacts Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a noted doctor in diseases of the blood.

The cast do well enough with a reasonable script. Keannu Reeves stands out as the worst performance in this feature, terribly miscast as Jonathan Harker and attempting an English accent that would not be out of place in Mary Poppins. Gary Oldman chews the scenery as The Count, veering from convincingly evil to hammily pantomime, but on the most part he emerges as a good addition to the vampire hall of fame. Winona Ryder is fine as Mina, again struggling with an accent, but coming out with greater credit than Reeves. Anthony Hopkins is splendidly over the top as Van Helsing, bringing a real life and energy to the vampire hunter, with a delicious line in blunt conversation. Sadie Frost makes the most of her role as the vampish Lucy, who later falls under the counts spell, to rise from the dead and prey on small children. Tom Waits also scores highly as the gibbering Renfield, but the rest of the cast are rather wasted in underwritten and underused roles. The film cannot really sustain so many characters, and quite often they will drift in and out of the story while providing little of benefit in plot progression.

The design of this film cannot be faulted, wonderful attention to detail, sumptuous costumes and sets, and very convincing make up for the initially elderly Count. The studio bound sets are impressive, even if eventually they do lend the film a suffocating air. The cinemaphotography is rich and vibrant but in being so it does provide an overly warm feeling for the film, and lacks a sense of dread.

A film with much potential, and certainly enjoyable, but never quite equals the sum of it's parts. Lacking often in dramatic tension, and failing to evoke any feelings of fear from Dracula or sympathy towards his victims. Its a bit flat, and occasional moments of Coppola magic can't quite save this picture from being plain ordinary in the end, if not an unwelcome addition to cinema's vampire hall of fame.