DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1995 Michael John Legeros
(Col) Directed by Mel Brooks Written by Mel Brooks, Rudy De Luca, Steve Haberman Cast Leslie Nielsen, Peter MacNicol, Steven Weber, Amy Yasbeck, Lysette Anthony, Harvey Korman, Mel Brooks MPAA Rating "PG-13" Running Time Approximately 90 minutes Reviewed at Carmike Cinemas at Six Forks, Raleigh, NC (13OCT95)
==
Any excursion into the mind of Mel Brooks is an occasion for cele- bration, even when it's a surprisingly slim spoof of Dracula films, old and new. Slight, and more than a little bit flat, DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT is at least an improvement over his last film, ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS. The laugh count is still awfully low--there hasn't been a *funny* Mel Brooks movie since, oh, his 1983 remake of TO BE OR NOT TO BE--but there are a *few* funny moments. And at least one classic scene involving a large quantity of blood.
Casting is part of the problem. In better days, Brooks had his pick from the likes of Madeline Kahn, Gene Wilder, Dom DeLuise, and Cloris Leachmen. Here, with the exception of Harvey Korman and a few fleeting old faces, he's working with featherweights. Such as Steven Weber (JEFFREY) and Amy Yasbeck (PROBLEM CHILD). (To be fair, Peter MacNicol is dead-on funny as the insect-loving Renfield. He has a great scene with Korman at a breakfast table.)
Oddly, the role of Dracula seems miscast. Leslie Nielsen is a great bumbler, but far less effective as a suave Transylvanian. (His inclusion, I suspect, was more market-driven than anything else. He's amusing enough, but would people really have paid to see, say, Frank Langella spoofing himself?) Brooks, who appears as the vampire-hunting Van Helsing, plays things straight; perhaps too straight. Nobody breaks into song; nobody appears dressed as a Nazi.
However good-natured the humor is, DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT is still flat on all fronts. This movie is neither scary-funny enough; nor quick-witted enough; nor authentic-looking enough to be effective. (If anything begs for some serious spoofing it's those great visual effects in BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA; effects that Brooks never takes a hearty stab at. Too bad.) The old Mel Brooks shows his face in a few scenes--an autopsy here, a gynecology line there--but, for the most part, the man who made YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is still down for the count.
Grade: C+
--
Michael J. Legeros - Raleigh, NC legeros@nando.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w) Check triangle.movies for weekly reviews from MOVIE HELL
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews