Movie:
Director: Ron Howard | Released: March 2009
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Skellan Starsgard

Yin and Yang. Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. Books and movies. Angels and demons. All of these duos are opposing forces, yet they intermingle in an unending cosmic balance of good and evil. Books are often heralded as the better over a screen adaptation in terms of storytelling. But, movies more often rake in the bigger bucks and popularize the title.  Dan Brown’s thriller prequel to Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons resurrects the ancient rivalry between science and religion. And since Ron Howard has taken both of Brown’s bestselling novels and turned them into big production movies, perhaps Howard and Brown are now interlocked as opposites thriving for dominion over the same title. Preferably the movie would coincide with the novel in a tidy screen adaptation, but we all know that never happens. So, what demons does Howard have floating about this time?

Don’t Forget To Have Your Characters Neutered Or Spayed
Amongst the several things snipped and yanked from Brown’s original concept of Angels & Demons, is Howard’s apparent lack of sexuality and mojo. In the novel, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is mainly a sexually supressed super-geek that has his nether regions awoken by a stunning Italian scientist named Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer). In the movie, Langdon hardly notices Ms. Vetra, and is instead more of the arrogant geek stereotype than the perv stereotype.

The sexy, impulsive Vetra seemed to have taken a few sedatives while making the journey from the book to the movie. Howard’s version of the character can’t stand in the shadow of Brown’s hot-blooded Italian vixen. In the book she chases her father’s killer with a clear abandonment of fear and disregard to danger. In the movie, though, she hardly ventures past the walls of the Vatican. Also, in the book she puts everyone in the Vatican on edge with her short shorts. The movie was kind enough to give her a plain black skirt…that went down to her knees. It’s okay for a character to dress conservative, but it detracts from Brown’s character who was clearly meant to be a source of sexuality and sexual tension for virtually every male character in the story.

To go one step further, Howard cut out the emotional bond that forms between the lead man and woman over the course of the story. He also removes (SPOILER ALERT) a sexy game of cat and mouse between Langdon and Vetra in a hotel in the book’s closing chapter. Rather, Howard opts for a much more pious ending to the movie. The movie’s ending isn’t bad, but it certainly doesn’t play to Brown’s romantic side of his storytelling.

The assassin also loses much of his virility in the movie. In my opinion this was a missed opportunity, as the hassassin in the book was a much more vicious character and source of chaos that played really well off of Langdon’s mix of genius and blossoming fondness for his female counterpart. Good villains are always a keystone to a great story–and Howard castrated this one.

The novel’s assassin (or hassassin, as Brown refers to him for his Middle Eastern roots) is a sexual predator the likes of which we haven’t seen since American Psycho. He is also a killer without pause or mercy in the novel, but he is the utter opposite in the movie. Sure he kills the cops without blinking an eye, but when it comes to the unarmed Langdon and Vetra he has code. In the book he can’t wait to ravage Vetra as a prize for his terrorism over the Vatican, but he doesn’t even notice her presence in the movie.

Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) also seemed to lose much of his alpha-male mojo in the movie. In the book he not only holds a higher rank in the Swiss Guard, but he was Langdon’s number one ballbuster. There was not one conclusion Langdon found throughout the story that Olivetti did not contest in the novel, but in the movie he acted more like Langdon’s lackey. This is not a total loss, however, as most of Olivetti’s arguments with Langdon were given to a character created just for the movie.

Easy Come, Easy Go
The movie added a main character while eliminating one of the novel’s main characters. Commandante Richter (Stellan Skarsgard) was a mish-mash of several characters from the novel. One scene in particular that he had in place of Maxmillian Kohler, the head of CERN research facility in the novel, was the scene where Camerlengo McKenna (Ewan McGregor) was branded with an Illuminatti brand. And just as a sidenote, the movie has a different brand for the Camerlengo than what Brown uses in the novel (for inexplicable reasons). Anyway, eliminating Kohler from the story created a deep rift in the storyline. For instance, in the movie Langdon is absconed from his Harvard life by the Vatican, but in the novel, he is rushed to the CERN facility at the behest of Kohler. Obviously, this created a chain-reaction of changes to the story and how characters met, etcetera. Also, as stated before, the Commandante received the majority of Olivetti’s dialogue with Langdon, for whatever reason.

The Right Stuff
One particular part the movie represented well was most of the assassinations. There were four in the book and three in the movie. But I guess three out of four ain’t bad. The ones that Howard did follow-through with were portrayed with startling accuracy. He unabashedly burned, maimed, stabbed and asphyxiated three out of the four kidnapped cardinals. As mentioned above, Howard spares the fourth cardinal from his watery grave. Also, there is something to be said for seeing the Vatican and outlying Rome. If you’ve never visited the area, this movie gives the audience a beautiful glimpse of the superior architecture and artistry amassed in the region.

Touch-Ups
There are many other discrepancies to be listed, of course. Many of them are minor and did not alter the story. But there were others that shifted the plotline severly. (SPOILER ALERT) For example, one of the cardinals survive the Illuminati assassinations in the movie. This changes the end of the film and how Langdon solvese the puzzle: the Path of Illumination. The assassin’s death is different (but not necessarily worse) in the movie. However, the confrontation between Langdon, Vittoria, and the assassin felt vastly different. There was also a much larger role played by Roman and Vatican police enforcement in the movie. This detracted somewhat from the drama for the main characters, as they had lots of security to back them up as opposed to going up against the Illuminati and its assassin alone.

The Camerlengo’s insanity levels and utter collapse were different as well. In the book he takes Langdon up in the helicopter while saving the city from the antimatter bomb. There is one parachute, and the Camerlengo leaves Langdon to his fate with the bomb miles above the Vatican. In the movie, Langdon never gets on the chopper. Also, the Camerlengo finds out much more about his father and why he shouldn’t have killed him. This is another missed opportunity for a chilling moment for the movie. Lastly, the Camerlengo is also deprived one of his biggest ‘church beats science’ speeches.

The movie also lacks Brown’s use of the media in the novel. There is a character by the name of Glick who is commissioned by the hassassin to cover the murders, and he and his camerawoman become players in the outcome of the story. One last change to mention is that Vittoria finds her dead father in his room. This doesn’t happen in the book and severly alters the sequencing of the story.

Book

Movie:
Director: Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Fran Walsh
Starring: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellan, Orlando Bloom
Release: 2001Rating: PG-13

It was only a matter of time before someone made a film of The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R. Tolkien’s first book of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The story is a masterpiece. The characters each have their own plight and rite of passage. The conflict and journey are epic. But it’s a slippery slope to try and adapt a timeless story such as this for the big screen. To quote a character from the story, “Stray but a little and you will fail.” Fortunately, Tolkien proves to be a wonderful guide in his wizardry and craft, and paved a clear path for director Peter Jackson and screen writer Fran Walsh. All they had to do was follow the map.

It should be noted that Tolkien did not completely render every nook and cranny of his saga. To detail every hillside or facial feature of characters or elven craftsmanship in their weapons would have taken a lifetime-and he had bills to pay. Rather, he used broad strokes for such things, letting the reader fill in the gaps. This is where the movie comes into play, and for the most part movie is a wonderful compliment to the book.

To go one step further, the screen writer did a wonderful job of creating little scenes here and there that reward the Tolkien fan club. For instance, we find the main character, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his companions sitting under what looks to be monsters carved into stone. These statues, however, are actually a trolls turned to stone in the saga’s prequel, The Hobbit. But, for every nuance added, there was one taken away.

Director’s Cuts
Tolkien had a wild imagination and a classic style. So, when the journey sets out, it passes through several common scenarios that we see in many stories, but with Tolkien’s fantastical flair. The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy sci-fi story at heart, but Tolkien at times may have gone too far for the average movie-goer.

For example, Frodo quickly finds that he is being chased along his journey, and flees to a dark, treacherous forest-which is a standard writer’s tool for confusion and/or evil (classic style). While traveling through the Old Forest, Frodo and his hobbit companions are entranced and Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) are engulfed by a carnivorous tree (enter Tolkien’s imagination). But a man-of-the-wood named Tom Bombadil beats the tree with the power of song.

The movie skips over the perils of the Old Forest entirely. But, I can see how the director might foresee the average audience finding a hobbit-eating tree bested by a singing, skipping woodlander a bit too much sci-fi. Instead Jackson simplified the formula: Sauron, Ringwraiths and orcs are the bad guys; hobbits, humans, elves, dwarfs are the good guys.

To expand on the concept of eliminating songs from the movie, there are many poems and songs excluded from the movie. In practically every chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring someone’s singing an old story or working on a new lyric. It’s not surprising that they were left out, though, as the movie has to keep its mainstream appeal, and people probably wouldn’t care much to hear the actors’ vocals. Unfortunately, stripping the movie of songs and rhymes leads to several scene changes, and some interesting lore. None of the “filler” for the missing songs damage the story, and they fit well enough with the journey’s flow.

Live By The Sword
The book is also far less violent and alludes to conflict much more than it embeds the audience in it. The wizard battle between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) in the tower Isengard is an exaggerated version of Gandalf and Saruman’s quarrel and Gandalf’s capture. Also, how Gandalf escapes is twisted to eliminate the introduction of another character (a beast-master wizard named Radagast).

In the climax of the movie a final battle on the hillside of Amon Hen claims the life of Boromir (Sean Bean) in a valant effort to regain his honor in sacrificing his life for the sake of his hobbit companions. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam flee the fellowship to seek their fate alone. In the book Tolkien leaves us with only Frodo’s path, as Boromir’s final stand is not revealed yet.  The movie provides a rewarding climax, however, and it is not totally unfounded. The second book, The Two Towers, records the battle on Amon Hen.

Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), a classic hero character, is a lost hero looking for strength within. Tolkien gives us a glimpse of Aragorn’s impotence and refusal to lead, but in the movie he is much quicker to grow into the leader. The biggest change for Aragorn, in my opinion, is Anduril, his sword and heirloom. In the book, he carries a broken hilt in his sheath. This is the heirloom that he seeks to remake one day upon the rise of the human race, and it is remade into Anduril, the blade that defeated the evil Sauron in the Battle for Middle-Earth. In the movie, the sword is found in the elven city Rivendell, where it lays broken in shards.

The movie couldn’t afford to have Aragorn not fighting, so he needed to have some sword, if not the mythical Anduril-but in the book he has no need for a sword as of yet. The battle with the Nine Ringwraiths on Weathertop is one of the few instances where he fights for his companions, he used torches-but in the movie he used torch and blade.

Love Conquers Author
The movie makes way for a strong female character and love interest, in yet another attempt to create a blockbuster event out of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga. Arwen (Liv Tyler) saves Frodo from certain doom on the way to Rivendell. With her aid the Ringwraiths are washed away in a flood she commanded with her elf craft, and Frodo is healed by the elf elder, Elrond (Hugo Weaving). While Frodo heals, Aragorn and Arwen share moments of forsaken love between human and elf, but in the book they hardly speak. Rather an elf named Glorfindel saves Frodo and his horse rides Frodo across to safety where Elrond and Gandalf create the flood. But, there’s always room for romance, even if a little re-writing is in order.

In a funny way, you could say that Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) and Frodo are also a couple. Sam is bound to Frodo as his servant. In the book their relationship is much like this: Sam calls Frodo master regularly and follows him with the loyalty of a dog. In the movie they make sure to not use the word master, and replace the servant-master relationship with one of love and commitment.

Whether or not all the little changes add up and destroy the book’s foundation, or if you believe that taking something old and making something new is the best way to treat Tolkien’s classic, the movie does do most of the book justice. Gandalf’s final battle, the temptation of Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), personification of the One Ring, Bilbo’s (Ian Holm) corruption, and countless other parts of the book are represented with outstanding accuracy. Unfortunately, a lot of back story and references to the prequel, The Hobbit are lost, but as a whole it is a testament to the book.

Book:

Author: Richard Yates
©1961, Vantage Books.

Movie:

Director: Sam Mendes
Screenplay: Justin Haythe
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet
Release: 01/23/2009
Rating: R

If you’re going to see Revolutionary Road because you’re anxiously anticipating the conclusion of the love story between Leo and Kate that started in Titanic, well, you’d best stay home. Revolutionary Road isn’t a love story; it’s a story of how you lose yourself when you’re wrong about love.

It’s the story of a suburban couple in 1950. April and Frank Wheeler’s lives are not so different from their neighbors, when you look through their plate glass windows. But once you go inside the cover, inside the front door, you discover a dark world.

A Painful Glimpse

“Hopeless emptiness. Now you’ve said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.”

So says John Givings, the most honest character on Revolutionary Road, despite the fact that he’s a mental patient. Hopelessness and emptiness are the unhappy bedfellows that lead Frank and April Wheeler to anger and despair.

In Revolutionary Road, author Richard Yates does not introduce you to another syrupy sweet version of the 1950s American dream. He does not bring you into the happy world of Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons – the typical world we think of when most of us daydream about the 1950s. There are no sock-hops, no picturesque family dinners. This becomes painfully clear from the moment that you open the pages, or the images appear on the screen. April has been in a play – a failed community production. Despite her training as an actress, she can’t save it – setting a tone and theme that reverberates throughout the pages and reels.

April tries to escape from their suburban life through her heartfelt plea with Frank to leave their home and move to Paris. In the movie, Winslet’s April kneels in front of DiCaprio’s Frank, tears in her eyes, and gives him the opportunity that virtually any man should want – if they’ll move, she’ll get a job, and he can be a man of leisure.

The book is riddled with arguments, fights and days of silence – the painful silence that we’ve all felt after a big family blowout. As uncomfortable as those fights are, they’re nothing in comparison to the gut-wrenching fights that Winslet and DiCaprio bring to the big screen.

Where would any good drama be without misguided motives and heaping platefuls of guilt? The same is true of Revolutionary Road. Through Yates’ use of flashbacks in the written story, we learn that Frank and April didn’t get married because they were madly in love, but rather because of an unplanned pregnancy. April offers to abort the child, Frank disagrees, and they end up in the suburbs with 2 children, and eventually a third on the way. This is just one of many flashblacks that we miss in screenwriter Justin Haythe’s adaptation. While abortion is a touchy subject in any genre, or timeframe, it is especially so in the 1950s – but their previous decision is vital to understanding how Frank and April have ended up where they are.

Revolutionary Road does not end in a beautiful reconciliation between April and Frank. Their final fight reveals that April no longer loves Frank – and Frank wishes she’d aborted the baby. They’d debated an at-home abortion for weeks in the book (only for days in the movie)but the days clicked by, and by the time the final fight came around, they’d reached the point of what seemed to be no return. April calmly and cleanly botches the procedure at home, and accidentally escapes the grim storybook life. Frank is left behind with the house and two children – and you really couldn’t tell if Frank was more upset about the loss of April or the new responsibilities that irrevocably change his complacent lifestyle.

Revolutionary Road reminds us that behind the bright exterior, every family has a darker side. Inside each of us, a revolution is brewing.

Book:

Movie:

Director: David Fincher
Screenplay: Eric Roth
Starring: Brad Pitt, Kate Blanchett
Release: 12/25/2008
Rating: PG-13

If someone had told you about an amazing autobiography he read about a man-child who was born old and died an infant, then the next day another person were to recount a wonderfully strange documentary film about an un-aging man named Benjamin Button, you would be hearing two starkly different tales. These men share a name, yes, but with different families, upbringings, home towns, personalities, adventures, romances, and growing up in different time periods, it’s hard to say that there is only one curious case of a Button.

In Fitzgerald’s original short story, Benjamin Button was born in 1860 Baltimore, Maryland. His mother was never known to the reader-my guess is that she did not survive the birth, as Benjamin entered the world as a 5’8” man-child. Ben’s father, Roger, was infuriated with what he found at the hospital, as what resembled a 70-year-old man with a long wispy beard was in the nursery speaking to him and the nurse. Roger wanted little to do with anything that would tarnish his social status, and a freak-of-nature newborn became an eyesore to his otherwise pristine reputation.

To compound Roger’s problems, the family doctor quit after delivering Ben; the hospital refused to keep him longer than a day under their care; and his father, Roger, was forced to take him back to the Button estate. But Roger took him in and raised him as a Button-though Ben was force-fed an infant’s upbringing-and he had no taste for warm milk, baby rattles, or games with other boys. He did, however, enjoy cigars, flipping through encyclopedias, and hanging out with Grandpa Button. All-in-all, Roger was a far more loving father than his doppelganger, Thomas Button.

We find Fincher’s version of Ben born in 1918 at the Buttons’ New Orleans duplex. Ben’s father Thomas steals him away in a crazed attempt to abandon the newborn. After attempting to throw the wrinkly, pint-sized infant into the Mississippi River, Thomas leaves Ben at the steps of a last-stop home for the elderly. Thomas spent the years bouncing between the whiskey bottles and brothelsHere, a woman named Queenie finds the hideously aged baby in blankets and takes him in. Though he had a youth’s curiosity, he didn’t think himself any different from the real 70-year-old residents. He is seen playing with kids visiting their grandparents at the home, adventuring in New Orleans, and playing with army soldiers.

The Buttons’ family tree, according to Fitzgerald, shows Roger Button as the successor to a wholesale hardware company, while Thomas Button manufactured and sold buttons. Go figure. Both had their share of success, but Roger shared success with Ben, who became increasingly acceptable to Roger as he progressively (or regressively, I should say) un-aged. Thomas, however, found success due to manufacturing demands from WWI, and only cared to pass the business to Ben as his life was passing by. Ben Button via the short story has a son named Roscoe. He takes over the wholesale company, and becomes increasingly irritated by his adolescent father winding back to a chubby-cheeked baby. Ben via Fincher’s movie has a daughter named Caroline and a lover named Daisy.

Both Benjamin Buttons became adventuring individuals. Fitzgerald’s wished to study at Yale, like his father before him. He was rejected and scoffed as he looked like a 50-year-old when he enrolled. He enlisted in the military and fought in the Spanish-American War. Ben, in the movie, worked on a ship when he began adventuring from his home. The ship was recruited by the navy for WWII and he saw some action off the shores of Japan. It becomes clear that Fitzgerald’s Benjamin is a man driven by vitality and adventure, while Benjamin in the movie seems to be more of a drifter. But, Fincher’s Benjamin always felt the call of home. This in large part was for his true love, Daisy.

In the movie Ben met Daisy when he was a hobbling, bald man-child. Daisy was no more then 10-years-old, but she saw a spark in the eyes of Benjamin, and they played much like normal kids do. Throughout out the movie they come in and out of each others’ lives. The two characters falls in love, but at different times. It creates wonderful tension. The short story, though, is a much dryer affair. Ben meets Hildegarde at a party. They dance in a formal arrangement. She loves him for his aged look and tranquility, though she was a young and beautiful woman. They age and cross each other as Ben groes young and she loses her vitality. They grow to dislike each other and Hildegarde moves to Italy (an unexplained event).

Narration is also a heavy point of divergence in the movie. We never know who the narrator is in the short story. Whenever there is a third-person narrator it is always an interesting discussion to have about who you think the narrator is, but Fincher leaves very little room for interpretation in the movie as he selected Benjamin’s daughter Caroline to read his journal back to his dying lover Daisy. Starting at the end is very fitting for Benjamin’s life, so having his daughter read the journal is perfect. It also give the story a beating heart because we watch how a passive individual grows attached to the story, then finds out how it impacts her own life-much like how the story interacts with the audience in the theatre.

To expand on the idea of unexplained events in Fitzgerald’s story, most occurrences in seem more like bullet points rather than momentous, life-shaping experiences. It’s like reading a slide show of somebody’s life in reverse. Fitzgerald flat-out states, several times, in essence that he is going to skip over some parts of Ben’s life. It is almost as if Fitzgerald rested on the laurels of conceiving this original concept, but did not explore its possibilities.

The movie does a far greater job of making Ben a full-blooded human being burdened with all the problems and anxieties unique to each individual. Fincher’s departures, and wholly creating a new Benjamin Button may be cruel to the Benjamin in Fitzgerald’s story, but it works, which is the most important part. Also, ending the movie on a Hurricane Katrina/Ninth Ward homage is a nice touch-you can thank Mr. Pitt for that, I’m sure.

Book:
Bram Stoker
©1897

Movie:
Directed by: Francis Ford CoppolaStarring: Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldham, Winona Ryder, Keeanu Reeves
Rated: R
Released: 1992

We all know Dracula. From Blacula to Doctor Dracula, the iconic antagonist has taken on many forms on the big screen in a frightening amount of spinoffs and adaptations. While these cinematic puns are acceptable and at times a guilty pleasure, when making a movie of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, one has to expect a certain amount of authenticity. Just as Dracula, the progenitor of all vampires has power over his victims, Bram Stoker’s original tale is the bible on all matters of the fictional character Count Dracula. Unfortunately, Francis Ford Coppola’s screen adaptation of Stoker’s book turns out to be just as hokey and trumped-up as any other movie cashing in on Stoker’s night-prowling incarnation.

Shape Shifter

The pages cut out of the movie are far too many to site. Suffice it to say that a handful of characters; a load of monologues and introspection; and entire scenes were totally ignored. This has serious side-effects to the accuracy of the film. But, the biggest change, by far, is the shift in theme and moral of the tale. The movie is a love story, and the book is a horror story. This alteration is incomprehensible and unforgivable-at least in my eyes.

The only reason I can think of for this shift is because, well, sex sells. And let’s face it-you can’t expect much in the T&A department from a book publish in the late 1800s, but the movie makes the convenient changes to open space for some girl-on-girl kissing, vampiress fantasies, and even beastiality. Coppola must have had a very interesting childhood with some of the scenes he dreamed up here. The most affection shown in the book is a pledge of friendship after three gentlemen callers are shot down by Lucy, England’s finest debutante and Dracula’s first victim on English soil. Stoker didn’t even allow a kiss after two characters marry! There are many, many more minor additions of unnecessary sexuality.

But if the humans characters in the book are depicted as prude, Dracula’s libido is comparable to that of a cadaver. He doesn’t seduce women; he doesn’t gush over heroine Mina Harker, and he’s not depressed. Stoker never gave insight into why or how Dracula came to be Undead, and perhaps if he knew that his work would be pilfered on a regular basis he would have solidified the genesis of the character, but Coppola’s Dracula has all the characteristics of a horny, balcony climbing, crybaby, bipolar teenager. In the book he is a true scoundrel; a fiend; the epitome of evil. Why mess with that?

One particular scene that didn’t make the final edit which could have been interesting were from Lucy’s romp as a young vampiress. The “bloofer lady” scenes are described as a pale woman calling young children at night and returning them to their families with tiny bite marks on their necks. Every night the children can’t wait for the bloofer lady to come, and the incidents became a common occurrence in newspapers. Lucy also had more than one encounter with Van Helsing in the cemetery, which were packed with suspense. The film saw fit to only show Lucy’s decapitation and exorcism.

Shedding Light On The Count

One necessary change in the movie is giving Dracula a physical presence. The book thoroughly documents Dracula’s impact on other characters, but he is caught clasped to a victim’s throat only once. Nonetheless, his presence is felt, though not seen. He is more of a phantom or silhouette then flesh and blood.  Readers are clued in after he has gone and victims are suffering from blood loss, or a villager clues us into the Count’s scheme as a third party. Obviously when you pay for your ticket you want to see the villain, and making him present is a necessary evil.

However, in giving Dracula his due on the big screen, Coppola decided to paint him with strange colors. He made him into several man-sized creatures, including a green bat (which looked totally cool); a Bigfoot-esque grizzly bear thing, an army of rats, and more. Stoker gives him the power of shape-shifting, and we see him as fog, a bat, and a wolf-but in far subtler ways. We never see the book’s Dracula attack anybody as an animal, though that is present in the movie, but this is subjectively acceptable, so I’ll leave it at that.

Moving onto other miscues, Van Helsing’s depiction in the flick is more of a madman than a scientist. The problem is that Van Helsing truly is an eccentric skirting on the fringe of genius and lunacy, but what the movie misses often is the reason behind his rhyme-explanations to all of the far-fetched drama the characters are embroiled in. Lucy’s death is bobbled. This comes from cutting her mother out of the movie; who actually adds morbidity to the household and a presence of looming death. Jonathan Harker is almost eliminated from the movie-and he is, if anybody, the main character of the book. Perhaps the ill-casted Keanu Reeve’s butchered Harker’s scenes beyond recovery, who knows. Quincey Morris, Arthur Goldamig, John Seward, and Renfield were casted and performed well.

Don’t get me wrong, Coppola’s movie has its moments: the production and special effects are bar-none for the time-period; and Gary Oldham (Dracula) and Anthony Hopkins (Van Helsing) are brilliant. But overall, when issuing a movie as an author’s, you cannot change the message of the story and strip the characters of their true selves. If Coppola had removed Stoker’s name from the title, I would have no gripe with the decisions he made and my opinion would be far different. But, why alter a classic? The sheer egotism of the matter burns me up.