There is much to be learned from beasts.
Gary Oldman's Dracula adopts an array of guises over the course of Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (at least a dozen by my count), but the one that stands out the most to me (for obvious reasons) is the hirsute wolf-man he turns into upon his arrival in England when, just off the boat from Romania, he ravishes Sadie Frost's flirtatious Lucy. This may seem like an embellishment on the part of screenwriter James V. Hart, but it's actually quite consistent with the character created by Stoker, which could take many forms, including that of a wolf. I have my doubts about whether Stoker's Dracula actually went around committing acts of bestiality, though. And I'm pretty sure Hart made up the thing about Winona Ryder's Mina being the reincarnation of Dracula's long-lost love. Besides, that's getting frighteningly close to Fright Night territory (another film with a vampire that transforms into a wolf, come to think of it).
Okay, enough about the wolf. It only appears for a couple minutes anyway. I guess I'm just avoiding getting into the plot because I know it means I'll have to bring up Keanu Reeves, who's rather stilted as Harker and is given a distressing amount of narration for someone with such a loose grip on his accent. I guess that's what comes of Hart's decision to convey much of the exposition in the form of letters, diary entries, captain's logs and so forth. At the other end of acting spectrum is Anthony Hopkins, who's quite possibly the most robust Van Helsing in screen history and tears into his voice overs with relish. And he's neatly matched by Richard E. Grant as lovelorn asylum director Dr. Seward, who loses Lucy to Cary Elwes's Lord Holmwood (who in turn loses her to Dracula), and Tom Waits as his star patient, the batshit insane Renfield. (Pity we don't get to witness his degeneration from mild-mannered law clerk to bug-eyed lunatic.)
Watching Bram Stoker's Dracula 20 years on, what sticks out the most for me is the romance between Mina and the dapper Dracula. Whether they're bonding over fondling a white wolf, downing absinthe, or dancing around a Police music video set, there's something about their courtship that never feels organic, which is problematic since that's the foundation that Hart built his entire script on. Better to focus on the visuals and single out for praise director of photography Michael Ballhaus, visual effects director Roman Coppola, and costume designer Eiko Ishioka, who won an Academy Award for her efforts. And considering how much work went into transforming Oldman into an old man and a wolf-man and a bat-man and everything in between, that Best Makeup Oscar was also well-deserved.