Keanu Reeves has spent the last 30 years unfairly batting away accusations that he’s not a very good actor, and while he admittedly doesn’t possess the same level of dramatic capabilities or range as many of his peers, you don’t stay a huge star for so long without being good at your job.
However, you’d be incredibly hard-pressed to find anybody that would defend his performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, which is nothing short of terrible. Reeves is wooden to a fault, and his attempt at an English accent is quite frankly diabolical, which is hardly ideal when many of his scenes are opposite Gary Oldman in phenomenal scenery-chewing form.
Johnny Depp was the first choice to play Jonathan Harker in the lavish supernatural drama, and he would have arguably been a vastly superior candidate for the part. Not that Dracula wasn’t a success, when it went on to earn $215 million at the box office and scoop three Academy Awards, but Reeves is horrendously miscast.
If you want to see the worst-ever turn from one of the planet’s most beloved actors, then you’re in luck; Bram Stoker’s Dracula is now streaming on Netflix, where it should find a decent audience given that we’re just 24 hours removed from Halloween.