Halloween Monsters, Wild Wild West and 007

Rating: 6/10 (27 September 2004)

clumzy's Take on "Van Helsing" - Rating - Maybe Worth a Free Viewing
I like to think of myself as a manly guy. I lift weights, do the maintenance on my own car, I've built a deck, and most importantly I like guy movies. You know the ones I'm talking about: Terminator, Predator, The Matrix, and the original Star Wars Trilogy to name but a few. A good movie to me is a simple mix of interesting characters, a story that gets you caring about them and maybe a helicopter, a car chase and some wire-fu but whatever, I'm no screen writer. So you would think that taking the classic monsters of yore like the Wolfman, Dracula, and Frankenstein and mixing in a hard-nosed "James Bond"-ish monster hunter and a leggy corseted butt-kicking babe would make for a delightful recipe for a slob like me. Yup, unfortunately, not so much so.
Set in the late 1800's the enigmatic Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is a "secret agent" of sorts who's sole purpose is the hunting and killing of evil monsters. His exploits take him and his friar sidekick (David Wenham) to Transylvania to knock off the dreaded Count Dracula and save the sexy warrior princess Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale) et al from eternal damnation. Van Helsing is armed to the teeth with an impressive array of medieval weaponry including a crossbow machine gun, some sort of spinny cutting disc saws and a couple of revolvers which make for some John Woo-ish slow-mo jumping shooting scenes. Oh ya and there's a bunch of CG Halloween monsters running and flying around in the dreary, dark, and gloomy Transylvania sets.
Sounds pretty good so far doesn't it? Unfortunately this film has no magic, no charm, no style and wholly improbable action sequences. Jackman, although slightly more amiable than his role in Xmen plays his tough-guy shtick cardboard cutout of a character leaping, flipping, shooting but making no connection with the viewer. Beckinsale, the noble warrior, prances around using her pseudo-kung-fu in high-heels and too-tight corset, blandly making me yawn and say "meh, whatever". Wenhem, who was very promising in Lord of the Rings, is absolutely wasted here, playing that annoying British sidekick from Relic Hunter. Finally our villain Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) is straight out of Wild Wild West or Shanghai Knights 2, brilliantly laughable.
The last nail in the coffin is exactly what this kind of film hinges on: Computer Graphics. Now we all know that computers have revolutionized film making, saving hack scripts from the recycling bin with the promise of "realistic" action that will blow our minds. Here's some news Hollywood, WE ARE NOT IMPRESSED. Your shiny flashy computer puppetry can't cover up those stinker stories and one dimensional characters. Like a good music score, CG should be used to augment the action and further the feel and style of the film, not take centre stage and scream "Look at me, I'm not even real!" Fine, we've been over this before, and clearly in Van Helsing, we see more than a plethora of CG baddies, flying thingies and gooy green globs floating around. In this case, it doesn't make for a pleasant experience. Top that off with sets and camera work from a bad Wil Smith movie, completely improbable action swinging, luckshots and gaps in logic and you've got few reasons to pay attention.
Really, I wanted to like this movie because of the huge "guy" factor but there's just too many things to overlook. Here is a prime example of a decent premise that will fade quickly into the forgotten because of over Hollywooding. The only saving grace to Van Helsing is that there was no blatant setup for a sequel. We can only hope.