Van Helsing (2004)

Van Helsing

by Ryan Ellis

May 17, 2004

If 'Stars Wars' and the digital age it helped usher in are responsible for

ridiculousness like 'Van Helsing', then maybe the cinematic spirit of the

'70s really did die when ILM created its first X-Wing. At least digital F/X

have helped to serve the story in films such as George Lucas' original

trilogy. That's not the case with 'Van Helsing', which has some of the most

over-the-top, phony visual F/X I've ever seen. Writer/director Stephen

Sommers remade 'The Mummy' a few years ago, which---for its multitude of

faults---was moderately exciting and had a sense of humour. This new Sommers

movie tries to tickle a rib here and there, although it's never funny. Or

fun. Or interesting. Or entertaining. Or worth your time. People are dying

in the world because they can't afford to eat...and Hollywood is spending

tens of millions of dollars to make a terrible movie like this. Curse them.

And curse me too for spending my money to see it.

Most kids today will have no idea who this Van Helsing fellow is. In the

Bram Stoker "Dracula" novel, Professor Van Helsing is the vampire expert

enlisted to help the heroes battle Mr. Fangs. Some versions of 'Dracula'

have painted the Professor with many fascinating layers, even causing some

viewers to wonder if he is also some sort of vampire. In this flick, he's no

longer a prof and he's not an older man either. Now Hugh Jackman is in the

driver's seat and he resembles the character we know only in name. [Even

THAT is different. Sommers changes his first name from Abraham to Gabriel.]

His task in this movie is to wipe out all the old Universal monsters who

first saw cinematic light over 70 years ago. It's not enough that the

original characters had to die in the black-and-white age. Now it's all in

drab widescreen colour and none of the deaths are all that tragic.

Any big-budget movie starring Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Wolf

Man, is trying to live up to a legend it probably couldn't match no matter

who the filmmakers are. Throw in a cameo by Mr. Hyde (of Jekyll & Hyde

fame), and you've got some major-league horror icons. Finding a way for all

these guys to interact must have been the first thing Sommers did while

writing the script. So what we have here is a a Bond movie with Dracula as

Blofeld. Van Helsing is a bounty-hunting Bond, ridding the world of vicious

villainy. Drac wants to harness Victor Frankenstein's re-animating skills to

give life to his bat children. Don't ask. For some reason, he needs the

exiled monster of the good Doc Frank to make this work. And the Wolf Man

(who is embodied in about 3 different characters in this movie) acts as a

hairy henchman. Just to make things even more foolish, Van Helsing is

equipped with anachronistic weapons and gizmos.

Kate Beckinsale is Anna Valerious, the Transylvanian daughter of a family

sworn to destroy Dracula. They've been failing for years and years. It seems

that the conventional stake, holy water, and cross have no affect. What to

do? Well, that's a major plot point (which ends up making no sense, believe

me), so I won't reveal it. She has to find out what will ice the vamp for

good or her family will remain cursed and live forever in purgatory. Bummer.

Soon after Van Helsing gets his assignment from the good ol' Catholic church

to take care of these bad guys, he's made a new friend in Anna. Since the

movie doesn't play up any sexual tension you might expect between the likes

of Jackman and Beckinsale, I assumed we'd discover they're long-lost

relatives. Alas, apart from meeting cute, I guess all they share is a lust

for whacking the blood-thirsty tyrants. In all these battles, fires break

out, lives are lost, stuff is broken, and no one important dies until the

final reel.

What is Hugh Jackman doing in this? This guy is bound for superstardom and

he's a truly gifted all-around performer. Why did he take this role? He's

really just playing Wolverine with a Gandalf hat. Like Wolverine, this is a

tortured hero accused of being a villain who can't remember his past and is

ultimately nothing more than a righteous murderer. Kate Beckinsale is a

beauty and these two look great together, although her limited talent can't

salvage a dull character. Richard Roxburgh---I gotta say it---sinks his

teeth into the role of Dracula. In this case, that's not good. He was

scarier as the foppish Duke in 'Moulin Rouge'. He's really quite bad in this

movie. Frankenstein's monster is a veritable wordsmith, even rattling off

the 23rd Psalm. As played by Shuler Hensley, the character has none of the

silent, childlike charm of the Boris Karloff creation. I like that he's

still a misunderstood creature, but he's rather wimpy. It's hard to believe

that the character created by Karloff would be treated as a McGuffin, but

that's exactly the role the Monster plays this time.

So none of the actors escape with much dignity and the people who first

dreamed up these original characters must be tempted to haunt Sommers's

house from now on. As horrid as his direction and writing is, it's the F/X

that I couldn't stand. This movie proves that while video games strive to

look more & more realistic (to look like a movie), movies strive to look

more & more phony (to look like a video game). Everything is confusing,

jumbled, over-loud, and boring. We get to see a climactic free-for-all

between a vampire and a wolf, which should have been the one sequence I

could rave about. Nah. That's not interesting either. It's just a digital

blur. I expect a popcorn movie to use computers to create something we

haven't seen before. They've achieved a tiny bit of that, but who cares? The

original 'Frankenstein', 'Dracula', and 'The Wolf Man' did far more with far

less.

Okay, so was the movie a little scary then? The only fright I had was when I

was leaving the theatre. Okay, I sprang out of my seat and RACED from the

theatre, but no matter. The fright I had was the realization that they fully

intend to make 'Van Helsing' a franchise. Enough major characters survive

that they can in fact waste money on a sequel, although I'm hoping cooler

heads prevail. When a movie makes a dullard out of Hugh Jackman and a drip

out of both Frankenstein's monster and Dracula, that movie should not be

allowed to spawn. Not only does this movie rob from the grave of past

masterpieces, it spits on the tombstones.

To shout my way, write to flickershows@hotmail.com. And check out my website

at http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend.

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