Review by Nicholas Porteous for Mr. Will Wong
Just as Frankenstein has Igor and Sherlock has Watson, Dracula has Renfield–and it’s about time he got his moment to shine. Renfield follows the lesser-known monster assistant through a time of transition, struggling to find a way out of an abusive, co-dependent relationship. Nicholas Hoult gives a hilariously vulnerable performance as a guy who has an easier time ripping the limbs off his victims than saying “no” to his evil master. Nicolas Cage is Dracula, and it’s clearly the role he’s been dying to play for most of his life–a perfect platform for the kind of scenery chewing (or rather, biting) that he excels at. Awkwafina is funny and rootable as a cop with almost no backup against an extraordinary number of gangsters and demons, and Brandon Scott nails his smaller role as an empathetic support group leader unwittingly caught in the middle of a supernatural battle.
Renfield is at its best when it plays with the absurd contrast between Gothic Horror and a small-scale Personal Drama. It’s an inspired genre mashup that had me in stitches for the First Act. It’s unfortunate that the Movie loses its way as the broad, Action-Thriller elements ramp up. I found the world of Renfield less and less funny as that contrast between disparate genres faded away and more violence and world-threatening stakes were added to the equation. Renfield has a strange relationship with violence too. It seems to be going for a ‘so-extreme-it-becomes-slapstick’ vibe, while also dropping strange music cues during overextended action sequences that feel like they’re nudging the audience in the direction of taking sheer, unironic pleasure in the explosive destruction of its many faceless minions’ bodies. By the tenth exploding person, I was ready to move on. Sadly, the body count only compounds as the movie lurches towards a slapdash, handy-wavy ending.
Renfield has a lot to offer comedically, and you may find the jokes and performances enjoyable enough to ignore the rough tonal swerves and disconcerting dips into gratuitous violence. The premise and casting are just that good. But unless you’re the kind of moviegoer who’s 100% sold on any Cage project—sight unseen—proceed with caution!
Universal Pictures Canada release RENFIELD April 14, 2023.
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