Dracula II: Ascension

This movie is `sold' as a sequel of `Dracula 2000'. The unique common point, besides the vampires, are the producer (Wes Craven) and the writers and director Joel Soisson and Patrick Lussier. The rest has nothing to do with `Dracula 2000'. The story has a good beginning in Czechoslovakia, with the vampire hunter Father Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee) chasing the Twins of Evil (Jennifer Kroll). His character is not well developed, but anyway his blood is contaminated by a vampire. Meanwhile, a group of students steals a carbonized body from the morgue for a research about life. Together with the handicapped Professor Lowell (Craig Sheffer), they bring a vampire back to life, keeping him chained and taking his blood for experiments, trying to isolate evil from the blood. Father Uffizi arrives in town chasing the vampire. This story has bad interpretations, a confused script and an important character (Father Uffizi) not developed. Jason Scott Lee seems to like undressing his shirts on the screen to show his body: his self-flagellation is ridiculous, and in `Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision' , he also undresses his shirts to fight against his opponent. Narcissism of his chest? My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): `Dracula II: A Ascensão' (`Dracula II: The Ascension')

Sequel to Dracula 2000 stars Jason London as Luke, a med student who finds the body of a vampire that turns out to be Dracula. Naturally all hell breaks loose and one giant set up for a third movie begins. Since the whole movie plays like one giant set up, it's hard to find much to say about the flick. Did I enjoy it? To some degree. It had some cool scenes (especially the finale, good stuff) and the actors did the best they could with the material, but for the most part, the movie was a major disappointment since I really enjoyed Dracula 2000. Despite my disappointment with this sequel, I will see the third picture when it comes out. I'm giving it 6/10 since it's really not a bad movie, just a disappointing one.

I love vampire films so naturally I had to see this one (Didn't care too much for Dracula 2000, though - I still gave it a try, though)..

It's a different movie, I'll give you that much. Don't misinterpret me as saying it's bad, but it's definately NOT - but it's just not what you'd expect.

Anyways, into vampire and horror pics you should still see it, nothing mindbreaking or anything like that, just good entertainment..

"Dracula II:Ascension" is the story of a group of medical students who come across the body of Dracula.When a mysterious stranger appears and offers the students $30 million to harvest the body and steal its blood for auction,it's an offer they can hardly refuse.Soon the students also find themselves relentlessly pursued by a vampire killer from the Vatican!"Dracula II:Ascension" is a slightly entertaining horror film that has many flaws.The characters are one-dimensional and the acting is pretty average.There are some good gore effects like really cool double decapitation scene,but there is not enough violence for my liking.The film becomes quickly boring and forgettable and there is absolutely no suspense.So if you like modern vampire flicks give it a look.I prefer atmospheric vampire chillers from 60's and early 70's like "Lips of Blood","The Brides of Dracula" or "Lemora:A Child's Tale of Supernatural" to name only a few.4 out of 10.

So the original plot outline of Dracula 2000 comes to light in its sequel, Dracula II: Ascension. Gripe #1 – as indicated by my summary, it's an unbalanced trilogy. Meaning? You get one stand alone film (Dracula 2000), and one two-part film (Dracula 2: Ascension & Dracula 3: Legacy) which go nicely together, requires the other to complete the idea, but really leaves the first one kind of hanging by its stand-alone, self-contained, lonesome. For other such trilogies, see also Star Wars (New Hope through Jedi), Back to the Future, and Matrix.

Unfortunately, Dracula II takes the path of Dracula 2000 and tries to throw a few shockers at the audience, making the same mistake of its predecessor in thinking that shocks and plot twists can replace decent story telling. Even worse, Dracula 2000 used up all the good twists. Jason Scott Lee as a butt-kicking priest? Um . . . that might be cool, and Lee's pretty cool. A film that gives action a back seat in favor of ‘resurrecting' Dracula and letting him subtly use/influence the people around him? I'm down with that. But the film is directed by the same man who did Dracula 2000, and well, Dracula 2000 had a lot more elements that could make it work and, well, you know where this heading . . .

Then I found myself asking questions like, what exactly do those priests do to the vampire bodies in the morgue? What is Father Uffizi's lighter fluid (or holy water, whatever it was) going to do to Dracula's corpse that hanging him in sunlight isn't going to do? If they do something else (not shown) like behead the bodies, why bother burning them?

Or how ‘bout: why wasn't Uffizi mentioned in the original film? Where's the Van Helsing offspring? Why must the actors do that hideously fake and unintimidating vampire hiss? And while they're at it, why do the `so liberating, blah, blah, blah' boastful speech when they turn? Why is this film so cliché in its setup?

I'm all for suspending disbelief for the sake of enjoying a film, but there comes a point where the clichés and questions add up beyond what you're capable of ignoring.

Dracula II: Ascension has 2 big twists to its plot. One is expected, typical of films like this, and incredibly lame - I never would have guessed who was in league with who, let's come out of the closet while we're at it. The second twist is actually very well executed, and much harder to spot. It would've been really great if they just ended the film and the series on that note instead of revving up for the third film, but I get the feeling that without the third film the writers would have opted for a happier, family friendly, resolution.

Oh well, we'll see where Dracula III leads.