Renfield

Nicolas Cage proves again and again that he's capable of playing any role without problems and let me tell you - he's nailing his role in this movie. He's an actor of many talents. Enjoyed movie a lot. Was fun.

Not bad, but I didn't really click with it enough. Nicolas Cage is a nice piece of casting and delivers in the role of Dracula, as I'd expect to be honest... feels like a Cage sorta character! Nicholas Hoult and Awkwafina are decent, I've seen better from the latter elsewhere but her performance improves as this one progresses. Honestly, I would've reworked the film to revolve around Cage, rather than Hoult. The story didn't really connect with me, as in I didn't get the required entertainment from it. It's alright, I just didn't really care for what I was watching - more like just acknowledging its existence, rather than actually sinking my teeth into what was happening onscreen. The humour could've been a bit stronger, too. I appreciate the attempt. 'Renfield' just didn't work for me.

I was not expecting much from Renfield and it pretty much gave me exactly what I was expecting: a mediocre film that was nothing offensive but all too forgettable. The screenplay is really all over the place. There are too many subplots and not enough time spent on the actual draw to the film, Dracula. Awkwafina's subplot was half baked and really did not go anywhere. I felt as though her character could have entirely been written out of the film to spend more time on Renfield and Dracula. The comedy is pretty bad. I do not remember laughing one time during the hour-thirty-minute runtime. There were clear jokes that they were trying to set up, but they just did not land for me. Performances were fine. Nicholas Cage was great as Dracula, but unfortunately did not have enough screen time or material to really make a huge impact on the film. Nicholas Holt was good in his role, but again I do not think he had much to work with. Everyone else gave really average performances. Awkwafina plays literally the same style of character as she did in Shang Chi, and it was fine, but nothing that really blew me away. The direction was pretty poor. So many action scenes had a tremendous amount of shaky cam and some weird motion blur type effect that made it really hard to see what was happening. It was brutal, don't get me wrong, and I loved what they attempted to go for, but it really just landed flat. Coming off from John Wick just a few weeks ago, the action direction was apparently bad. The gore was at an extreme, but for the love of God, why did they choose to use CGI blood? The graphics literally looked like something out of a PS2 Mortal Kombat; absolutely terrible. Which is a shame because that mixed with the poor action direction really took me out of every scene when I should have been locked in having a bloody good time. Overall, this film is a misstep in what could have been a fun, campy, cult classic. The jumbled screenplay, poor stunt choreography, and terrible effects really hold this movie back from its true potential. There is nothing truly awful that make this a bad movie, just enough there to make it an extremely average experience. Score: 44% ❌ Verdict: Poor