The Newest Trend?

Rating: Null/10 (8 May 2004)

This isn't a review of this particular movie. I thought it profoundly mindless, but fun enough to make up for it. I think the CG was a tad overused, and didn't look all that good most of the time. I was particularly unimpressed with the Dracula creature. But that's pretty much all I have to say about it. It was harmless. Not good enough to leave any lasting impression, but not bad enough to make me care enough to hate it.
But I just can't get over this crossover trend that was set with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last year. There have been several movies since that throw a bunch of characters from different franchises into the mix. Even though the Alamo is supposed to be a historical docudrama or whatever, it seemed strange to see Jim Bowie and Davey Crockett in the same story. So count that one, or don't, if you wish. Freddie vs. Jason pitted the two famed slasher movie icons against each other, and Alien vs Predator does the same with the equally iconic sci/fi monsters.
All right, two in one, that's not that bad. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was just ridiculous, of course, with dozens of literary sources mangled in a shredder and thrown together, barely stitched together to form what some might consider a moderately coherent plot. We've got, like, ten different books colliding in this movie. Apart from the League itself, there were further references to others, including Sherlock Holmes.
But that one we can let go, because it's based on an old comic or whatever. Fine. The movie was bad enough on it's own.
Van Helsing, however, does this so overtly and so needlessly that you really have to wonder what anyone was thinking. It's the League of Extraordinary Universal Monsters. If you haven't seen the movie, you likely already know that it features Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Wolf Man. However, it also feature's Mr. Hyde in a utterly unnecessary preamble. And not only does this seem out of place in the company of these classic monsters, but it's hinted that Hyde is also the Hunchback of Notre Dame, AND Jack the Ripper. These references just seem thrown in for the sake of throwing them in.
I seriously don't know what the hell they can do with the sequel you know they're going to make, unless it's just the same movie over again, with all the dead villains either coming back or turning out not to have died. Maybe we'll get computer-animated flashbacks to enlighten us.
I swear to God, Bram Stoker must be wishing he could rise from the grave and wreak his terrible, vampiric revenge upon all the different bastardizations of EVERY possible character he created. Dracula's been done to death, of course. The League butchered Mina Murray, and now Van Helsing has turned its titular character into something that barely resembles the guy we met in the book. Should we expect "Jonathan Harker" coming in 2005? Starring Keanu Reeves as an vampire hunter who engages hordes of identical undead in slow-motion kung-fu brawls? Or, better yet, "Westernra" starring - oh, I don't know, Drew Barrymore, let's say - as Lucy Westernra, turned vampire, but kept her soul or something, and so uses her supernatural undead powers and sex appeal to fight evil. It'll be like "Angel," except she's a chick.
You might laugh or roll your eyes, but if Van Helsing has been any indication, we are not that far off.
Maybe Somers thought this would be a dud, and so tried to cram in every monster he could find because he didn't think he'd get another chance. Or maybe he has a terminal illness or something. Because this is what he loves doing - taking classic, iconic figures and revisiting them in new and occasionally moderately interesting ways.
Unfortunately, Van Helsing was NOT one of those occasions.
Well, what do you know, I guess this sort of WAS a review of the movie.