{"id":572570,"date":"2026-02-07T09:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/572570\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T09:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:25:14","slug":"caleb-landry-jones-christoph-waltz-new-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/572570\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Landry Jones, Christoph Waltz New Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s tough being a Bram Stoker\u2019s \u201cDracula<\/a>\u201d girl in a Robert Eggers\u2019 \u201cNosferatu\u201d<\/a> world. But not even an extra campy Caleb Landry Jones<\/a> \u2014 dressed in a vampire get-up that makes him look like albino Jar Jar Binks \u2014 can make the latest retelling of the classic gothic novel feel warranted or fresh. Released by Vertical on February 6 in the U.S., filmmaker Luc Besson<\/a>\u2018s new take on the darkly romantic horror story is a narratively tedious and contrived tale that drains from its auteur\u2019s visually lush craft.<\/p>\n

The guy behind sci-fi favorite \u201cThe Fifth Element\u201d<\/a> once again announces himself as a connoisseur of bright colors and vaguely goofy fantasy concepts; here, through overwhelming scenes taken from a larger-than-life version of 19th-century Paris. A world this ornate should feel equally immersive in its storytelling, but as a screenwriter, Besson gets instantly caught up over-explaining his plot in a manner that suggests he may have confused literary density for sincere emotion and top-shelf prose.<\/p>\n

\"'KPop<\/a> \"Love<\/a> <\/p>\n

Opening 400 years earlier, Besson\u2019s \u201cDracula\u201d begins with the not-yet-undead Prince Vladimir of Wallachia (Jones) going to war \u2014\u00a0after a sensuous morning spent in bed with his Princess Elisabeta (Zo\u00eb Bleu). It\u2019s not every remake you get a gothic romance where the leads actually like each other, and even fewer where they\u2019re straight. Images of the couple making love and stuffing food into each other\u2019s mouths arrives before anything else. Still, underpinning their fiery connection with a palpable fondness, Besson\u2019s\u00a0direction of \u201cDracula\u201d can\u2019t drum up the soul lacking from such a weirdly stiff script<\/p>\n

When Elisabeta is murdered during a battle with the Ottoman Empire, her widowed prince vows to become a vampire and takes up the name of Dracula, promising to someday reunite with his love. It\u2019s a decent plan that Besson stretches far beyond the cold open he should\u2019ve tried\u00a0to instead insert obvious insecurity through dialogue that routinely repeat itself. The unceremonious skewering of a religious leader by an enraged Dracula is no exception there, and the scene feels oddly torturous not because it\u2019s too violent \u2014 but because the kill is dull and waiting for it isn\u2019t satisfied enough by the final knife\u2019s twist.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cDracula\u201d (2026) <\/p>\n

From there, audiences are thrust back to France in 1889, where Dracula sets about the arduous task of carving out a special niche in overly tired literary adaptation history. The similarities between 2024\u2019s \u201cNosferatu\u201d and Besson\u2019s new \u201cDracula\u201d are numerous. Echoes of the earlier film<\/a>\u2018s imagery ring across several of Besson\u2019s otherwise distinctive shots, and while much of that overlap is stylistic, the two movies\u2019 structural comparisons also carry a recognizable cadence that marks Eggers the obvious winner. Besson takes real liberties with Stoker\u2019s original saga too, hinting at a purposeful attempt to reframe Dracula as a sly romantic hero that winds up looking like just another ineffectual vampire movie instead.<\/p>\n

Evoking the spritely mischievousness that Jones nailed in Jordan Peele\u2019s \u201cGet Out,\u201d the actor\u2019s impish performance as the titular bloodsucker often plays like an extended audition for another project. He\u2019d fit right in on AMC\u2019s \u201cInterview with the Vampire,\u201d<\/a> and someone should have his agent check to see if \u201c28 Years Later\u201d is hiring more Jimmys<\/a>. But those comparisons only come to mind during the film because Besson leaves so much interpretive space between the source material and his loose reworking.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cDracula\u201d (2026) <\/p>\n

As Dracula, Jones is giddy and joyous with flecks of depravity bursting through as the plot expands to include his ethereal bond with Harker\u2019s fianc\u00e9e, Mina Murray (also Bleu). Holding viewers by the throat for a handful of strong beats, even as the script slips through the entire cast\u2019s fingers, the devilish actor sells Besson\u2019s interpretation on charisma and cunning. You earnestly believe in the love between the embattled prince and his princess, and watching Dracula seduce Mina in a super-saturated wonderland evocative of \u201cMoulin Rouge!,\u201d you buy that these second-generation soulmates may have seriously reincarnated their connection. But when digital gargoyles start flying down from the ceiling, the horror-action mechanics Besson can\u2019t help but include here overwhelm whatever intimacy his film had before.<\/p>\n

A finale that\u2019s meant to take an intoxicating love story and make it an explosive fight to the finish becomes sincerely silly, and the erotic charge never quite comes back for Jones and his scene partner, Bleu. Their passion can\u2019t catch, and despite fun-enough moments of bloodletting and corpse counting, Besson\u2019s \u201cDracula\u201d rarely if ever feels frightening. The filmmaker leans pop-comic rather than petrifying in his final draft, opting for earnestness that smothers atmospheric dread. That tonal choice might have worked with a more captivating ensemble, but as it stands, this vision never fully clicks into place.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cDracula\u201d (2026) <\/p>\n

Notably, Christoph Waltz<\/a> appears as a maddeningly nonplussed priest tasked with hunting the titular vampire. He offers intellectual conversations about God, the Devil, and moral ambiguity that tease at thematic depth. And yet, Waltz\u2019s affable, wooden interpretation flattens the role and makes the movie\u2019s moral center read as oddly mundane. Running more than two hours, \u201cDracula\u201d ultimately ignores the recognizable rhythms that make love stories and monster movies compelling \u2014\u00a0forcing audiences to stew in a historic dramedy that relies on flimsy humor to patch over too many technical problems.<\/p>\n

The cast\u2019s deliveries on Besson\u2019s punchlines are strong, and editor Lucas Fabiani keeps up his end of the deal when it comes to timing. But not even Jones isn\u2019t funny or magnetic enough to sustain attention without the support of real suspense and allure. Immortality isn\u2019t the same thing as relevance, and for American audiences, Besson\u2019s \u201cDracula\u201d is a fine excuse to go to the theaters but hardly a seductive one. With more than 200 \u201cDracula\u201d films already in circulation, the genre feels ready to give both a rest.<\/p>\n

Grade: C-<\/p>\n

From Vertical in the U.S. on February 6, \u201cDracula\u201d is now in theaters. <\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s tough being a Bram Stoker\u2019s \u201cDracula\u201d girl in a Robert Eggers\u2019 \u201cNosferatu\u201d world. But not even an…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":572571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[108588,248803,78746,171,1020,108590,11853,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-572570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-caleb-landry-jones","tag-christoph-waltz","tag-dracula","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-luc-besson","tag-reviews","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}