It’s tough being a Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” girl in a Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” world. But not even an extra campy Caleb Landry Jones — dressed in a vampire get-up that makes him look like albino Jar Jar Binks — can make the just in retelling of the classic gothic novel feel warranted or fresh. Released by Vertical on February 6 in the U.S., filmmaker Luc Besson‘s new take on the darkly romantic horror story is a narratively tedious and contrived tale that drains from its auteur’s visually lush craft.

The guy behind sci-fi favorite “The Fifth Element” once again announces himself as a connoisseur of bright colors and vaguely goofy fantasy concepts; here, through overwhelming scenes taken from a larger-than-life version of 19th-century Paris. A world this ornate should feel equally immersive in its storytelling, but as a screenwriter, Besson gets instantly caught up over-explaining his plot in a manner that suggests he may have confused literary density for sincere emotion and top-shelf prose.

Opening 400 years earlier, Besson’s “Dracula” begins with the not-yet-undead Prince Vladimir of Wallachia (Jones) going to war — after a sensuous morning spent in bed with his Princess Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu). It’s not every remake you get a gothic romance where the leads actually like each other, and even fewer where they’re straight. Images of the couple making love and stuffing food into each other’s mouths arrives before anything else. Still, underpinning their fiery connection with a palpable fondness, Besson’s direction of “Dracula” can’t drum up the soul lacking from such a weirdly stiff script

When Elisabeta is murdered during a battle with the Ottoman Empire, her widowed prince vows to become a vampire and takes up the name of Dracula, promising to someday reunite with his love. It’s a decent plan that Besson stretches far beyond the cold open he should’ve tried to instead insert obvious insecurity through dialogue that routinely repeat itself. The unceremonious skewering of a religious leader by an enraged Dracula is no exception there, and the scene feels oddly torturous not because it’s too violent — but because the kill is dull and waiting for it isn’t satisfied enough by the final knife’s twist.

From there, audiences are thrust back to France in 1889, where Dracula sets about the arduous task of carving out a special niche in overly tired literary adaptation history. The similarities between 2024’s “Nosferatu” and Besson’s new “Dracula” are numerous. Echoes of the earlier film‘s imagery ring across several of Besson’s otherwise distinctive shots, and while much of that overlap is stylistic, the two movies’ structural comparisons also carry a recognizable cadence that marks Eggers the obvious winner. Besson takes real liberties with Stoker’s original saga too, hinting at a purposeful attempt to reframe Dracula as a sly romantic hero that winds up looking like just another ineffectual vampire movie instead.

Evoking the spritely mischievousness that Jones nailed in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” the actor’s impish performance as the titular bloodsucker often plays like an extended audition for another project. He’d fit right in on AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire,” and someone should have his agent check to see if “28 Years Later” is hiring more Jimmys. But those comparisons only come to mind during the film because Besson leaves so much interpretive space between the source material and his loose reworking.

As Dracula, Jones is giddy and joyous with flecks of depravity bursting through as the plot expands to include his ethereal bond with Harker’s fiancée, Mina Murray (also Bleu). Holding viewers by the throat for a handful of strong beats, even as the script slips through the entire cast’s fingers, the devilish actor sells Besson’s interpretation on charisma and cunning. You earnestly believe in the love between the embattled prince and his princess, and watching Dracula seduce Mina in a super-saturated wonderland evocative of “Moulin Rouge!,” you buy that these second-generation soulmates may have seriously reincarnated their connection. But when digital gargoyles start flying down from the ceiling, the horror-action mechanics Besson can’t help but include here overwhelm whatever intimacy his film had before.

A finale that’s meant to take an intoxicating love story and make it an explosive fight to the finish becomes sincerely silly, and the erotic charge never quite comes back for Jones and his scene partner, Bleu. Their passion can’t catch, and despite fun-enough moments of bloodletting and corpse counting, Besson’s “Dracula” rarely if ever feels frightening. The filmmaker leans pop-comic rather than petrifying in his final draft, opting for earnestness that smothers atmospheric dread. That tonal choice might have worked with a more captivating ensemble, but as it stands, this vision never fully clicks into place.

Notably, Christoph Waltz appears as a maddeningly nonplussed priest tasked with hunting the titular vampire. He offers intellectual conversations about God, the Devil, and moral ambiguity that tease at thematic depth. And yet, Waltz’s affable, wooden interpretation flattens the role and makes the movie’s moral center read as oddly mundane. Running more than two hours, “Dracula” ultimately ignores the recognizable rhythms that make love stories and monster movies compelling — forcing audiences to stew in a historic dramedy that relies on flimsy humor to patch over too many technical problems.

The cast’s deliveries on Besson’s punchlines are strong, and editor Lucas Fabiani keeps up his end of the deal when it comes to timing. But not even Jones isn’t funny or magnetic enough to sustain attention without the support of real suspense and allure. Immortality isn’t the same thing as relevance, and for American audiences, Besson’s “Dracula” is a fine excuse to go to the theaters but hardly a seductive one. With more than 200 “Dracula” films already in circulation, the genre feels ready to give both a rest.

Grade: C-

From Vertical in the U.S. on February 6, “Dracula” is now in theaters.

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