Main cast: Jason Scott Lee (Father Uffizi), Jason London (Luke), Alexandra Wescourt (Julia Hughes), Diane Neal (Elizabeth Blaine), Roy Scheider (Cardinal Siqueros), and Rutger Hauer (Dracula)
Director: Patrick Lussier

Dracula III: Legacy has a lot of screen time for Father Uffizi, but not enough Dracula.

I don’t know why the people behind this movie keep doing this. They keep hyping up a showdown between those from the previous movie, Dracula II: Ascending, but they also keep failing to deliver.

The core story is definitely much better than the one in the previous movie.

Set five years later, Father Uffizi has defiantly defrocked himself because he’s bent on taking down Dracula and his bosses at the Church felt that he should go on a nice holiday or something instead. Joining him is Luke, who still feels bad about his role in getting Elizabeth, whom he has a crush on, turned into a vampire. 

Their mission takes them right into the heart of Bucharest, where they also no doubt filmed the last two The Prophecy movies at the same time. The local gangs have taken to trafficking women to Dracula for his daily nourishment, and there are also… vampire clowns?

Okay, I’m not sure why there are vampire clowns here, but they are cool and creepy at the same time, so I can’t complain too much about them.

I can complain, however, about this movie wasting precious screen time having Father Uffizi babysit two worthless human specimens that exist just to keep causing problems for everyone.

Luke is unwatchable here, as he keeps quipping non-stop like he has some psychological complex, and at the same time, he undermines Uffizi just to screw up things spectacularly for them when he’s not acting like he knows everything, only to screw up at penultimate moments. Quipping non-stop is a right, and this worthless imbecile doesn’t deserve that right when he’s just a dead weight that exists only to annoy the hell out of me.

Then there is that anchorwoman Julia Hughes. Yes, she’s also worthless, but like very annoying stereotypes of female reporters, she will run headlong into danger at the most inopportune moments, do the most stupid things whenever possible, and needs rescuing all the while shrieking that she will not get out of the way of danger just because. She is another terrible character that should have been drowned at conception.

Uffizi, therefore, spends the bulk of this movie running up and down to clean up these two imbeciles’ mess, and I feel my brain melt slowly and painfully just watching the whole thing. 

When he finally meets his nemesis, it’s as if the money ran out there and then and oops, these people just slap in some half-ass conclusion and voila, that’s a wrap and now everyone can go home.

Also, really? We go from Gerard Butler to what’s his face in the previous movie to Rutger Hauer? I like Mr Hauer, but man, compared to the previous movies in this trilogy, this Dracula is a massive downgrade. It’s not like this version is any more interesting either, as he’s barely in this movie to do anything of import.

Poor Father Uffizi! I am never given a chance to know him better, because oh my god, the people behind these movies seem to have given up on this movie even before the opening credits start rolling.

What a terrible waste of a potentially cool character, and what a waste of time.