Image courtesy of IMDb
Hello, everyone.
I know I’ve been absent for some time now (again), but I was determined to come back for my Halloween review, and after some consideration, I decided to settle on this one.
It celebrated its 20th Anniversary earlier in the year (the same day as the 25th Anniversary of a previous project from the same director), so I figured why not do it for Halloween.
As I hinted at in my previous review, this is a tribute to a more well known portion of Universal’s catalog.
Any horror fans or fellow film enthusiasts will immediately get where I’m going with this.
This serves as a tribute to their era of classic monsters, some of which show up here (namely vampires, werewolves, and mad scientists and their experiments).
Folks, we’re going monster hunting with Wol- I mean Hugh Jackman, as I present my review of Van Helsing.
The story follows Gabriel Van Helsing as he goes about on his mission of eliminating evil from the world on behalf of the Vatican*.
After encountering Mr. Hyde in Paris, he is assigned to protect the last two surviving members of a gypsy family** from Count Dracula and kill him before he can kill them. If he does, they will forever be in Purgatory.
Not only that, he also seeks world domination.
However, to do that, he has thousands of undead offspring that can only be brought to life through experiments formerly conducted by Dr. Victor Frankenstein, thereby making Frankenstein’s Monster the key to achieving his goal.
What Worked: The cast largely give solid performances (the biggest exception I’ll get to momentarily).
Hugh Jackman has some of the charm he brought to Wolverine here, particularly with some of the banter he has with his companion***, a friar named Carl (played by David Wenham, who had just appeared in The Lord of the Rings and would gain further recognition upon appearing in 300).
It does feel like some of the exchanges you’d hear between James Bond and Q (fitting, because Hugh was apparently in the running to take over from Pierce Brosnan at the time). However, that’s an aspect of another issue I’ll get to later.
Kate Beckinsale seems to be having fun with the material as Princess Anna, especially considering she was able to fight vampires and werewolves again so soon after Underworld came out.
Will Kemp, who plays her brother, Prince Velkan, also gets some good moments (most of which I can’t spoil due to a huge plot point).
There are two performances that genuinely stand out.
The first is David Wenham as Carl, who is the comic relief character. He doesn’t make jokes for the sake of making jokes, he does them at times where it fits the character.
It’s also mostly banter between him and other characters, which is where it’s most effective.
The best performance in the movie comes from Shuler Hensley as Frankenstein’s Monster. He has a genuine motivation, and is the most sympathetic character.
It’s worth noting that he also served as the body double for Mr. Hyde for the sequences with him (accompanied by the vocal talents of Robbie Coltrane).
Speaking of that, the technical aspects are where this movie makes up for its shortcomings.
There are a lot of fun action sequences (especially considering Chad Stahelski and David Leitch contributed to the stunt work here), but the production design, cinematography, and score hold up the most.
Most of the effects have aged well, and it also helps that Industrial Light & Magic was the main effects house utilized. I do also appreciate that they went practical whenever they could by using techniques like makeup and miniatures.
When it comes to the production design and cinematography, this movie is visually stunning, particularly the opening, which is shot in black and white.
The score, though, is one of the best parts, and it’s also among the best work of one of my favorite composers, Alan Silvestri.
It’s also largely consistent in terms of pacing.
What Didn’t Work: I’ll get my biggest issue out of the way first (well, one of them).
Richard Roxburgh is a good actor when given the right material. This was during the time when he was given the weakest scripts to work with. It started with Mission: Impossible II and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen****, and then he went from this to Stealth, which an argument could be made had the worst dialogue of them all for him.
While I am saying this is better than his performance in Stealth, the majority of his performance here as Count Dracula is unintentionally hilarious.
His delivery here is so laughably bad that you could put Nicolas Cage (who would later end up playing Dracula in Renfield) or Tommy Wiseau in his spot, and it wouldn’t make a difference.
I will give his version this: How he shows up in the third act is awesome, and I do appreciate that they saved showing it for that.
His brides (one of whom is played by Elena Anaya, who you may recognize as Doctor Poison from Wonder Woman) are hardly given anything to do except attack people and die.
When it comes to the effects that haven’t aged well, those in two of the three brides’ death scenes really have not. They’ve aged so poorly that I can’t decide whether or not they’re worse than the dated effects in the original Blade. The same goes for the look of the offspring when they show up.
I can say that they’ve aged better than the look of the Scorpion King at the end of The Mummy Returns, but only slightly.
The worst effect, though, is actually at the very end of the movie.
Going back to most of the characters, they’re among the bigger casualties of the script. The brides, Anna, and Velkan barely have anything to do.
Though I do admire that Stephen Sommers wanted to show respect to a beloved era from Universal’s history while also putting his own spin on it, it doesn’t completely show.
As I just stated, the script is one of the biggest reasons why. Not only are the characters largely sidelined from a narrative perspective, but there are also two other things that drag the movie down.
The first is a thing he has a habit of doing, which is over-exposition. He tells more than he shows. There are times where you really notice it, like when Van Helsing is sent to find Anna and Velkan.
The second is a result of that, which is the fact that there are big plot holes here.
For example, in that same scene, he’s being told the purpose of his superiors, which is information he should already know.
This is also an example of the fact that one of two things needed to happen. This could’ve benefitted more from having a cowriter or bring someone in for rewrites to punch it up.
His direction is fine, and I do like his sense of scale.
However, as a result of that, there is one other big issue that I have, and he also tends to do this: The runtime.
At 2 hours and 11 minutes, it does feel a bit long. I did feel the length a couple times.
Overall: While it does have its share of problems (and it may have sounded like I hate this movie, which I don’t), Van Helsing does also have a lot going for it.
It has a solid cast, very fun action, effects that largely hold up, excellent production value, a phenomenal score, and decent pacing, which make up for the weaker effects and the narrative and script setbacks.
To be fair, there’s really two ways you can view this movie, and I’ve just provided the objective version for review purposes. There’s also the subjective version, which is looking at it from the perspective of viewing it as an over the top, campy, fun monster movie (and which works better, and mainly how I saw it).
In fact, there’s one movie I very much view from that mindset, which I hope to cover pretty soon.
In closing, while I don’t love this movie as much as some others do, I do appreciate what it set out to do, and it largely does succeed at that.
There are people who view this as a Guilty Pleasure movie, and to a degree, it is, I just don’t have as big of an attachment to it.
If you can forgive the tricks that are thrown your way here (and I can), then the movie itself is a treat to watch, and I ultimately still found it to be an at least decent choice for this year’s October review.
Next time, we’ll look at a Halloween movie that’s a bit more recent, and features someone who has also fought Count Dracula.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
*In a manner of speaking, unlike Charlie Sheen, he’s an actual Vatican assassin.
**Ironically enough, one of the other movies I had considered also involved a gypsy at the center of the conflict.
***I almost said “sidekick,” but then I realized I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of an F-bomb from Bela Lugosi.
****That, from what I’ve heard, has similar issues to this.