Van Helsing (2004)
Country: US/CZ
Technical: bw/col 131m
Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Elena Anaya, Samuel West (as Frankenstein, despatched in the pre-credit)
Synopsis:
Van Helsing is sent by his secret Vatican masters to aid the last descendants of a Transylvanian family to rid the country of the curse of vampirism. Somehow, werewolves and Frankenstein's creature get thrown into the mix, too.
Review:
Extremely silly vanity project along the lines of the Mummy films: the pre-credit is a straight homage to the Universal Frankenstein films; the Vatican sequence a parody of a 007 mission despatch, complete with friar 'Q'; the rest is mostly CGI combat and chase sequences involving Dracula's brides and other grotesques, designed to play out the movie to inordinate length and delay the face-off with the Count himself. The settings are impressive, the touches of humour welcome, and some sequences actually succeed in stoking up tension (a night ride through the forest, for example); but the stakes are routinely piled so high, only for the merest fluke to grant a nick-of-time escape, that our sense of engagement dissipates along with plot continuity (one minute in Budapest, the next back in Transylvania). When, after so much levity, the makers have our heroine, Anna Valerious (don't laugh), hurled from rope to rope, through windows and against walls without so much as a scratch, only to despatch her with a shove at the last minute, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Country: US/CZ
Technical: bw/col 131m
Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Elena Anaya, Samuel West (as Frankenstein, despatched in the pre-credit)
Synopsis:
Van Helsing is sent by his secret Vatican masters to aid the last descendants of a Transylvanian family to rid the country of the curse of vampirism. Somehow, werewolves and Frankenstein's creature get thrown into the mix, too.
Review:
Extremely silly vanity project along the lines of the Mummy films: the pre-credit is a straight homage to the Universal Frankenstein films; the Vatican sequence a parody of a 007 mission despatch, complete with friar 'Q'; the rest is mostly CGI combat and chase sequences involving Dracula's brides and other grotesques, designed to play out the movie to inordinate length and delay the face-off with the Count himself. The settings are impressive, the touches of humour welcome, and some sequences actually succeed in stoking up tension (a night ride through the forest, for example); but the stakes are routinely piled so high, only for the merest fluke to grant a nick-of-time escape, that our sense of engagement dissipates along with plot continuity (one minute in Budapest, the next back in Transylvania). When, after so much levity, the makers have our heroine, Anna Valerious (don't laugh), hurled from rope to rope, through windows and against walls without so much as a scratch, only to despatch her with a shove at the last minute, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Country: US/CZ
Technical: bw/col 131m
Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Elena Anaya, Samuel West (as Frankenstein, despatched in the pre-credit)
Synopsis:
Van Helsing is sent by his secret Vatican masters to aid the last descendants of a Transylvanian family to rid the country of the curse of vampirism. Somehow, werewolves and Frankenstein's creature get thrown into the mix, too.
Review:
Extremely silly vanity project along the lines of the Mummy films: the pre-credit is a straight homage to the Universal Frankenstein films; the Vatican sequence a parody of a 007 mission despatch, complete with friar 'Q'; the rest is mostly CGI combat and chase sequences involving Dracula's brides and other grotesques, designed to play out the movie to inordinate length and delay the face-off with the Count himself. The settings are impressive, the touches of humour welcome, and some sequences actually succeed in stoking up tension (a night ride through the forest, for example); but the stakes are routinely piled so high, only for the merest fluke to grant a nick-of-time escape, that our sense of engagement dissipates along with plot continuity (one minute in Budapest, the next back in Transylvania). When, after so much levity, the makers have our heroine, Anna Valerious (don't laugh), hurled from rope to rope, through windows and against walls without so much as a scratch, only to despatch her with a shove at the last minute, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth.