Renfield is 'a sloppy mess' even though Nicolas Cage's Dracula is a treat

Great performances from Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina and even Nicolas Cage as Dracula aren't enough to save this lacklustre new vampire film, writes Caryn James.

You'd think it would be hard to resist a film that has Nicolas Cage as Dracula, soignée in a ruby-red suit, sipping blood out of a Martini glass, along with Nicholas Hoult as his wild-eyed, bug-eating servant, Renfield, who decides to break free after attending a group for people in co-dependent relationships. But a clever premise and ideal casting aren't enough to save a scattershot movie that throws everything at the wall, including a dull crime story and lots of badly staged fight sequences. If you've watched the film's enticing trailer, you've already heard almost all the best lines and seen a tauter, more engaging version of Renfield than the sloppy mess it turns out to be.

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As the title promises, this is Renfield's story, with Dracula flitting in and out, and that is quite a good choice. Hoult gives his put-upon character empathy and charm, introducing himself in a voiceover as "Robert Montague Renfield", explaining how he and his Master ended up in contemporary New Orleans after centuries together. Another attempt to kill Dracula has left his powers temporarily depleted, and put Cage in prosthetics and makeup that look as if his skin has been torn away from his skull.  Looking for blood to restore the Count, Renfield goes to the group, targeting the no-good abs that its talk about.

Putting Renfield in that ordinary situation, where he realises: "I have to get out of a toxic relationship," gives the film its best thread. Brandon Scott Jones (Isaac in the US version of the sitcom Ghosts) is hilarious as Mark, the earnest group leader who totally misunderstands the kind of power Dracula, the narcissistic boss, holds over his servant.

But the story soon goes haywire, as Renfield's search for victims puts him at odds with the local crime family, run by the fearsome matriarch Bellasca Lobo, played by the always charismatic Shohreh Aghdashloo. Ben Schwartz has a flat role as her not-so-bright son, Teddy. The action scenes, including two long battles between Renfield and the Lobo henchmen, seem to be going for superhero antics with fistfights, leaps through the air and the occasional decapitated head. But director Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) has given the scenes a quick-cut choppiness that only calls attention to the lame stunts. The geysers of ketchup-coloured blood add a cartoonish quality, but the action is neither funny nor dynamic.

The criminal connection does have one positive effect on the story. It brings in Awkwafina, who is lively and comically baffled as Rebecca, a New Orleans police officer assigned to traffic duty but determined to bring down the Lobos. She and Renfield have a romantic spark, which leads to one of the more inspired satirical sequences. In a montage satirising a rom-com trope, Renfield gets his own bright new apartment, shops for clothes and turns up at the police station wearing a pastel colour-blocked sweater from Macy's and holding a bouquet of flowers for Rebecca. If only the film had stayed on that track. What We Do in the Shadows, a similar tongue-in-cheek vampire story in both its film and television versions, works because it is committed to its mockumentary conceit, with characters convinced they are just ordinary people who happen to be bloodsuckers. But Renfield's disparate crime-and-action segments, smacking of a cynical ploy for viewers, constantly pull us away from the only engaging storyline.

Cage creates another vivid, witty character, channelling old movie Draculas from Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee. The Count, soon restored to his normal greenish-white pallour, grins and shows rows of teeny little pointed teeth. He glides along with an air of entitlement, and in a rare, funny bit of dialogue, orders Renfield to find him "unsuspecting tourists, nuns, and a busload of cheerleaders", whose pure blood will nourish him. (Dracula may not be so up-to-date on the supposed innocence of cheerleaders.) But this fun-to-watch vampire never stays on screen long enough to redeem the muddle of a film he's trapped in. Renfield is worth watching for Cage, Hoult and Awkwafina's entertaining performances, and not much more.

★★☆☆☆

Renfield opens in cinemas in the US and UK on 14 April

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