Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 23% (Critics) / 60% (Audience)
Directed By:  Gary Shore
Written By:  Matt Sazamaa and Burk Sharpless
Starring:  Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon and Charles Dance
Studio:  Universal Pictures
Synopsis:  As his kingdom is being threatened by the Turks, young prince Vlad Tepes must become a monster feared by his own people in order to obtain the power needed to protect his own family, and the families of his kingdom. – (Source)

The Good:
Charles Dance, even under a mountain of crappy monster make-up and relegated to performing all of his scenes in a dark cave set, is amazing. He brought more gravitas to his role as the Master Vampire than this character or this movie really deserved.
And Luke Evans did an admirable job as Dracula despite the film’s shortcomings.

The Bad:
Trying to make Dracula into an action hero is about as boneheaded a decision as a movie studio could make. The best depictions of Dracula (and vampires in general) lean more in the direction of the tortured monster or just the out and out monsters. Plus this movie’s origin story was so incredibly tedious.

The Ugly:
SO…MUCH…CGI!

Final Verdict: If Universal is serious about creating new franchises with their classic horror monster this is not the best first step. Stripping away all of the horror of Dracula to make this obnoxiously CGI heavy action adventure that never did anything interesting with the character or the setting will only serve to drive a stake into their plans. This Dracula story should have probably remained untold.

Grade: D