Van Helsing (2004)
Somewhere underground, under 4 millions
years worth of silt and topsoil, is a huge fossilized
chunk of Tyrannosaurus Rex excrement, so huge that
it has to be the biggest piece of shit on the face
of the Earth. "Van Helsing" is, without a doubt, the
second biggest.
Bombastically loud, bounding with
unnecessary action, full of anachronisms, stalled
by cliches, desperate to evoke "Indiana Jones" and
crammed with every single "monster" character in the
Universal arsenal, "Van Helsing" is the latest in
a continuing trend in Hollywood. That is: Blockbuster
bombardments on the American public that are exercises
in the benefits of CGI over reality and style over
substance. The trend has just about played out.
One only has to look at the casting
to understand just how formulaic this film is. Hugh
Jackman plays a protagonist that is a virtual carbon
copy of his "X-Men" character, a amnesiac superhero
who undergoes a Herculean like adventure which allows
him to discover his past. Jackman phones in his performance
here using snide zingers hurled out of the corner
of his mouth (the way Rambo shoots bullets) to substitute
for true acting. It's really not his fault, of course.
There's not a character here to actually enact. The
role calls for a two-dimensional hunk armed only with
a voicebox full of trite witticisms and Jackman performs
accordingly. I bet they didn't even take out insurance
on him because if he got sick or died, they could
just use a cardboard cutout of him and have someone
who has a bad accent overdub the dialogue later.
Meanwhile, Jackman's love interest
is played by Kate Beckinsale, hot off of her carbon
copy (and equally crappy) film "Underworld." Beckinsale
is so disinterested in this role that she seems like
a relative unknown turning in a performance in a B-movie
for a director who hired her because she resembles
Kate Beckinsale. Perhaps she thought her character
was supposed to be a less animated clone of herself.
If so, she deserves some kudos for being able to play
herself as if she were her own doppleganger.
The rest of the cast is a bunch
of unknown stereotypes. The guy who plays Carl, a
friar and Van Helsing's sidekick, is a clone gone
wrong of Paul Bettany. And the guy playing Dracula
looks like Gary Oldman's stand-in. The guy playing
Frankenstein looks like the larger-than-life brother
of the monster played by Peter Boyle in Mel Brooks'
"Young Frankenstein." Like everything else in this
Godawful piece of crapola, the casting resembles the
casting of a wannabe blockbuster by studio committee.
("What we need here is a 'Paul Bettany' type that
will work for scale." Or, "What we need is a Kate
Beckinsale lookalike. Wait, we can get Beckinsale
for a song? Give me a contract! Stat!")
Universal, which owns every depression-era
monster movie icon in existence, crams them all into
this film. Van Helsing, a character that comes out
of "Dracula," takes on not only that infamous vampire
and his wives and their spawns, but also Frankenstien's
monster (including the mad doctor and Igor) and a
couple of Werewolves. The film begins with Van Helsing
taking on Dr. Jeckyl (morphed into a muscular and
gigantic Mr. Hyde), expect of course that here the
Robert Louis Stevenson character looks more like Ang
Lee's "The Hulk" on a coffee break. And like that
infamously horrid version of the comic book character,
and Spider-Man's recent cinematic incarnation, the
movement of the CGI characters here is so fake looking
that one grows tired of the implausibility of it all
almost immediately.
Hell, the only Universal movie monster
not here is "The Mummy." Van Helsing director Stephen
Sommers claim to fame is that he directed the recent
Brendan Frasier vehicles "The Mummy" and "The Mummy
Returns." Why doesn't the Mummy character appear here?
Gosh, because that would be silly now wouldn't it.
And we know there will be a sequel. Can't you hear
the announcer's voice on the trailer now? "From the
director of 'Van Helsing' and 'The Mummy' comes this
summer's biggest film: 'Van Helsing and the Mummy!'"
The plot of this film is incoherent
and only those with an IQ of a typical comic book
fan will be able to piece together the idiotic subplots
that are threaded throughout the film and make something
cohesive of it all. It's all rather typical and plodding
and exactly the kind of stuff one expects from a summer
blockbuster, a ho-hum excursion into pleasing teenage
boys. Well, actually it's more like a ho-hum excursion
into pleasing Harry Knowles who seems to be inherently
possessed with the knowledge of what pleases teenage
boys. (I know, I Know... You would think that would
actually be more up my alley but, alas...)
The film is rated PG-13, so the
naked women in the film, screeching harpies that make
me glad I'm a homosexual, all wear bodysuits so they
look nude but are in fact not. And there is no blood
here but, much to the delight of all those 14 year
old boys, there is a lot of green ectoplasmic gloop
posing as the monsters' internal fluids. This messy
gunk continuously splooges across the screen like
so many of the Incredible Hulk's nocturnal emissions.
It all gets rather Freudian, in a Stan Lee sort of
way.
The titular "Van Helsing" was at
one time going to be played by Anthony Hopkins, who
would reprise his role from the popular 1994 film
version of "Dracula." One can only imagine the octogenarian
thespian looking at this crappy movie and laughing
his ass off at just how horrid it has turned out to
be. At least he had the good, good sense to stay far
away. Jackman, obviously a money-grubbing whore, should
pray that he has a career that lasts longer than when
he is into his 30's.
This isn't a film, it's a cinematic
headache, a film by committee that is so overwhelmed
by its everything-but-the- computer-generated-kitchen-sink
mentality that it rivals computer-generated-fingernails-on-the-computer-generated-
chalkboard for pure annoyance. This is the kind of
film that makes you want to kick the guys over at
Industrial Light and Magic in the balls! Repeatedly!
Somewhere Bram Stoker is in his grave spinning like
a computer-generated top.
Notes:
The character in the Stoker book
is named Abraham (Stoker's real first name). It is
said that the name was changed here, and the character
considered that Van Helsing's kid brother, so that
the production company who made the film could retain
rights to the character. Director Sommers, who also
wrote the incoherent script, gave the laughably implausible
excuse for the change by saying he didn't think he
could have a lead character named Abraham.
The nepotism factor: Samantha Sommers
plays a "Vampire Child."
