VanHelsing; a Universal pleaser

Rating: 9/10 (9 January 2005)

VanHelsing is a lovely, dark, atmospheric, action-packed, well written, brilliantly conceived, effects-tacular homage to Universal's classic Monsters of the 30's and the 40's.
Now, this was definitely NOT high art, that's for sure. And it strayed from what I had expected, considering it was Universal. You would expect the characters to be based on the older Universal monsters; or at least...I did.
The one thing which made me like this work so much was the treatment of the vampyres in flight. That was magnificent. I was so excited to see that on the big screen ... and I liked the treatment of Frankenstein's monster. He was much more like Shelly wrote him than Universal's first reincarnation of him. He was insightful, intelligent, and quoting Paradise Lost. He was brilliantly done.
Popcorn flicks are seriously underrated, though. I love the big effects and the big, epic feeling of those blockbuster-y KABOOM pics. I'm an Eye Candy whore, yes, but that's not all I look for. I thought there WAS a nice story here. It was really rather sweet. Dracula wanted his children to live. Okay, yes, he also wanted to use them to dominate the world and destroy (or enslave) mankind, but other than that, it was quite sentimental.
I was a bit disappointed, however, that we were not given the Gabriel/Abraham back-story. That is aggravating. Gabriel is called the "right hand of God" in the movie. Does that mean that Gabriel VanHelsing is somehow the archangel Gabriel? I dunno. It left a lot of questions for me.
The homagic sequences at the beginning, those filmed in an almost film noir style in the opening, did let me know right there at the door of this thing, that Sommers had tampered with the Universal formula. But even with the changes to the feel and the base story lines, I found this endeavor highly enjoyable.
They cannot explain it away by saying that THIS Frankenstein's monster was another one, and not the first, because they have Frankenstein there, screaming, "It's alive!" and not something else like, "It's alive, again!" or "GO ME!" Dracula clearly was not there in the original Universal installments to which this was supposed to be a continuation.
However, as was pointed out by My mate, Dracula could have been there in the originals, but "dimly present," or downright invisible. He IS a master Vampyre, after all. But in this version, he was neither dim, invisible, nor absent. So...that leads us back to the beginning. Sommers tampered with the formula very deeply; I feel that's why this work struck such an errant note with most viewers. It just didn't feel quite right to the purists.
But for me, Van Helsing was a very different experience from that.
From time to time, there comes along a cinematic work which fills you with a sense of wonder and awe. For me, Van Helsing was the first one since the LotR trilogy to touch that place in my mind's eye. For open-minded fans of the old Universal classics, the use of black and white at the beginning gave a feeling of connection with the movie from the onset. Familiar characters, familiar settings, familiar stories; all with a fresh, new spin while maintaining the old familiarities.
The audience is treated to the best eye candy while making the attempt to maintain the integrity of the classics. You get to see vampyres in flight, the caring (and loving) conceptual makeup of Frankenstein's Monster, and a delightfully fresh treatment of VanHelsing combined with stellar performances, painstaking direction, and brilliant post-production work make this one of my new absolute favorites. The werewolves were quite good.
Of course, this work was also a Universal production, so they were able to use the Wolf Man words, "Even a man who is good at heart and says his prayers by night..." We were in the theater and my love said to me (quietly of course), "They can't use that!" "Ah, but they can," I answered. "This is Universal, too." "No wonder it's so good," was my love's only response.
I really enjoyed the dialog. It was cleverly witty and delightfully fresh. As was the take on the whole enterprise. It was beautiful and dark, yet full of hope. I thoroughly enjoyed this attempt and hope they are amply successful with this work to warrant a sequel.
On a final note: while I thoroughly enjoyed the theatrical DVD release ("making of" featurette, director's commentary and tons of extras for a theatrical version), I strongly suggest you get the Ultimate Edition available at amazon.com.
It rates just beneath Underworld at a 9.4/10 from...
the Fiend :.