The 1988 movie Vampire’s Kiss, about a lonely lothario with delusions of vampirism, may have flopped at the box office, but it did help establish Nicolas Cage’s idiosyncratic performance style. Perhaps inevitably, he has now brought his eye-popping instincts and shouty charisma to the role of Count Dracula – with most pleasing results.
Cage’s Dracula doesn’t have top billing here, however; that goes to his longtime servant, played as a meek-but-mighty Englishman by Nicholas Hoult. In this modern-day telling, Renfield’s bug-eating is the source of his super-strength, not a mark of madness, and he wants out of what he sees as an abusive relationship with his over-demanding boss. But his breaking free is complicated by a blossoming romance with Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), a New Orleans cop determined to bring a local crime family to justice.
