
The critic's quote should be warning enough.
If a movie’s poster says “hip and happening,” it probably isn’t. And if the movie has a year in the title, it’s a surefire warning sign to stay away.
I knew there was a problem when the first thing that happened in Dracula 2000 was a flashback to the year 1897 for a two minute montage of a boat. After the montage, we head back to the year 2000. But the couch was comfortable, so I settled in for an hour and a half of pain.
You would think that a movie with Gerard Butler, Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Esposito, Omar Epps, Sean Patrick Thomas, Danny Masterson, Shane West, and Jeri Ryan might at least be slightly watchable. It’s not like those actors are terrible — but they all suck in Dracula 2000. It’s a wonder they were hired for anything after this.
True, they don’t exactly have Shakespearian dialogue to work with; they get to yell lines at Dracula like, “You’re not from that coffin! You are not from that coffin!” But he is. And he should have stayed in it.
But even bad dialogue doesn’t matter when we can’t hear you speak. All throughout the movie, Mary (the female lead) whispers. Literally. Every line she says to everyone is whispered! Speak up! Apparently she’s moody. Who knows? Gerard Butler seems to have the whisper problem in this movie, too. And then you have Simon (the male protagonist) doing the opposite – he yells his lines at everyone. It’s an assault on the aural nerves. Any semblance of acting dies in this movie with Christopher Plummer.
The plot isn’t exactly well done, either (which is kind of difficult to mess up — you have a book already! It’s called Dracula! Can’t you just make it in modern times? Easy!). For example, Dracula comes back from the dead and (thats right!) goes to Louisiana. Because London wasn’t cool enough, I guess. Too many people, too many buildings.

Ahh, man! This movie sucks! I hope no one else watches this.
The dumbest plot issue, however, was the “backstory” of Dracula they concoct. Apparently, Dracula is really Judas. Right. That one. He sucks blood now because he sucked when he betrayed Jesus…no that’s not right. He became a creature of the night because that’s the only time they accepted his 30 pieces of silver? He bites people because he bit Jesus? No. This isn’t really working with any other piece of vampire lore. And apparently, you kill vampires by hanging them. Got it! I knew we were all doing something wrong!
About an hour into this movie, I started thinking, “Are they still talking? Blah blah blah blah blah,” and “my critical thinking skills are starting to shut down.”
There’s a scene where Danny Masterson gets a vampire leech in his eye. Watching this movie is like that. Avoid.