Francis Ford Coppola's gothic tale of horror and obsession stars Gary Oldman (The Fifth Element) as the undead Count, Winona Ryder (Aliens Resurrection) as the lovely Mina, Keanu Reeves (Speed, Point Break) as Jonathan Harker, Mina's fiance, and Anthony Hopkins as Dracula's implacable nemesis, Dr. Van Helsing. This is a not your typical Dracula type horror movie which is what I expected when I first saw it but rather Coppola sets out to portray it as a love story and to a certain degree he succeeds.

Gary Oldman stars as the count who invites Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) to his castle in Transylvania, to sign and deliver a real estate deal as the count wants to move to London . While Harker is there, the Count learns of the existence of Mina (Winona Ryder), who is Harker's fiance, but who also bears an uncanny resemblance to the count's betrothed, who died in tragic circumstances, several hundred years earlier. The Count feels his destiny drawing him to London and sets off to London for Mina. Harker is meanwhile help captive in the Counts castle by the Counts faithful female vampires. (I wish I had a bed like that!). The Count soon returns to Transylvania with Mina, Dr Van Helsing and his associates are in hot pursuit intent to on destroying him.

I think Gary Oldman does a fine job as the undead count but no many how many times I see it I cannot get used to the fake english accent of Keanu Reeves, if there is one weak link in the acting it is him. I can still see him in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure so maybe I'm not giving him a fair go. The other actors do a fair job but overall they all fall abit flat.

The DVD edition of Dracula is presented by Columbia-Tristar and again is so jaw-dropping beautiful it has to be seen to be believed. The colors and detail are so finely rendered that the glowing red on the Counts cape virtually jump out of the screen at you. The sets are amazingly detailed and really capture well this period in time, I am just glad that I was'nt born then. The movie is dark, by that I mean most of the scenes are shot in either low light or at night which help give it that gothic feel to the movie. The DVD transfer handles this fine and does the film justice.

The widescreen transfer is enhanced for 16:9 monitors with the letterboxed framing on standard 4:3 sets at about 1.78:1. This disc also includes the full-screen and Pan & Scan version on the second side.

Along with a video transfer worthy of Coppola's stunning visuals, this disc contains a remarkable Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track that finally does justice to this Academy Award winning soundtrack. The mix is highly directional with an active surround presence that makes full use of the discrete and full-range surround channels. It really sets the atmosphere and ambience of this movie giving it that scary, look over your shoulder type feel. 

In addition to the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, 2-channel surround tracks are available in English, French, and Spanish. As with previous Columbia Tristar DVDs, the disc menu contains only "scene access" and language and subtitle selections. No trailer or other extras are included.

There have been several very impressive DVDs released so far. This is not the best I have seen but without a doubt it is not far off. Recommended.