Is there any more life to suck out of Bram Stoker's Dracula myth?

Cynical executive producer Wes Craven never tires of re-packaging old ideas - he is always happy to Scream and Scream and Scream again - and so while Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2001 is not a reference to the number of Dracula movies or sequels, it would be easy to make that mistake.

Dracula 2001 updates the deeds of the Prince Of Darkness to this year, hijacks the Stoker story from Transylvania and throws in an unexpected new Christian angle on the vampire's anti-social motives, courtesy of scriptwriter Joel Soisson: Count Dracula's fear of crosses and pieces of silver has its roots in Judas Iscariot's act of betrayal. How interesting... unlike the rest of this teen-slasher caper.

Craven has installed Scream cohort Patrick Lussier in the director's seat, and he promptly takes Dracula down pop video lane, each scene overplayed, each visual more important than the dialogue.

After a brief 19th century scene aboard the shipwrecked Demeter, Dracula 2001 switches to modern-day London where designer-clad American thieves have broken into a high-security basement vault. In a case of vaulting ambition, they make off with the prize possession of vampire-hunting antiques dealer Abraham Van Helsing (Christopher Plummer, in retro Hammer Horror mode). It is not a wise move, as the coffin turns out to be the home of the immortal Count, Van Helsing's old adversary.

En route to America, the vampire awakens; the thieves' plane crashes into New Orleans mid- Mardi Gras, and Dracula (Gerard Butler) finds himself strangely drawn to using a ridiculous German accent and to frequenting the local Virgin megastore - not because of his love of music but because this is Dracula, as in Dracula and virgins. Let the most shameless exercise in product placement begin.

Van Helsing's ex-pat daughter Mary (Justine Waddell) works at the store, an alternative Virgin Mary who wears her Virgin T-shirt at night just to ram home the virgin imagery still further. Dracula and the blood-contaminated Van Helsings have some unfinished business, business to be conducted with the aid of Van Helsing's young assistant (Jonny Lee Miller).

Butler is camp and about as scary as a dandelion; Waddell is ill suited to slasher movies and looks in need of a Jane Austen story; Miller has only one decent line and none of the get-up-and-go of Plunkett & Macleane.

This toothless Dracula is undead, unfunny, unsexy and unnecessary.