Van Helsing

Van Helsing
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Kategori : 2004 action Horror Hugh Jackman Kate Beckinsale Richard Roxburgh Van Helsing Stream thousands of movies and TV shows free INCINEMAX

***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion (or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching!  The movie that gave "meh" effort into its special effects...and decided to be loud and obnoxious with everything else.

Van Helsing – 1 out of 5

I watched Van Helsing not long after it came out on DVD back in the early 2000s.  To put it nicely, I wasn’t impressed.  To put it meanly, I found it absolutely godawful!  Nearly every single aspect of this film was an unbridled mess and what was turned in was a loud, obnoxious feature with some truly gross special effects and a really underwhelming performance from Hugh Jackman.  It’s been a bit since those days and, recently, I decided to revisit it and see if I judged it too harshly.  I didn’t.  This movie really sucks.

Jackman didn't deserve to be in this movie.  Did he insult some executive
at some point?

In the late 1800s, monster hunter Van Helsing (Jackman) is sent to Transylvania by the Vatican in order to kill Dracula (Richard Roxburgh).  He is accompanied by an inventor named Carl (David Wenham) and then finds himself teaming with a woman named Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale).  Anna’s family has been trying to kill Dracula for generations.  Together, they learn that Dracula is attempting to recreate the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein and give his undead children life.  To do this, he must use the doctor’s monster (Shuler Hensley) in order to uncover the secret.  Now Van Helsing must protect the creature and stop the dreaded vampire.

"My plan involves making an army of vampire children and chewing
the fuck out of the scenery!"

I don’t think Van Helsing is a good movie.  In fact, I think it is utter crap.  Now, don’t get me wrong, if you like the movie, I am happy for you.  As my disclaimer states, my reviews aren't statements of facts concerning the features themselves.  These are my expressions of my experiences and impressions of the movies.  And in the case of Van Helsing, the experience is nearly painful, and the impression is the entire production didn’t give a single, solitary fuck about the quality they were pumping out as the movie looks like complete trash.  In all honesty, there is probably only a single aspect of the production that I found even remotely is passable and fine.  Everything else though?  Everything else sucks.

Carl is the comic relief...except he's not a funny character.

They took the time to give the werewolf nipples
but couldn't be bother to make it look real?

This is one of those movies that is so overwhelmingly bad that it is hard to sit down and figure out where to exactly start.  Not to mention, this review could go extremely long if I broke it down and went through all the aspects of the production that were weak or outright awful.  Right off the bat, the most noticeable horrible thing about the film is the special effects.  The computer effects and even the makeup artistry is horrendous to look at.  The CG just made me wince and when makeup is used on characters like Igor or Frankenstein’s monster, it looked like it was purchased at a local popup Halloween store and was on the verge of running off the actor’s face literally every second they are on screen.  What makes these matters worse is how the production never works around the very obvious shortcomings of it all.  The terrible CG is often the focus of every shot and lingered on like the director wanted to make sure you got a really good look at how fake it all looked and then went with a lot of closeups of the shitty makeup, so the illusion is completely destroyed.  Never is the production filming around these aspects but rather they are on full display.  Editing, lighting, and filming techniques could have been employed to shroud these elements and maybe make the movie look a little more mysterious and creative but, instead, it really felt like the director was actively asking you to laugh at just how terrible everything looked.

Crummy makeup or is Igor's face melting?

ALL LINES MUST BE YELLED!!!

Next up on the chopping list is the cast…they are also not good.  There are two extremes in this film:  Bored and an overall appearance that this is being done for the paycheck and CHEW EVERY BIT OF SCENERY THAT IS IN YOUR VACINITY!  Richard Roxburgh is overacting the fuck out of his performance as Dracula and is giving the exact same level of overdoing it that he brought to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Shuler Hensley as Frankenstein’s monster is under the impression that the only volume to deliver a line is as LOUD AS POSSIBLE!  Kevin J. O’Connor seems to be laying on the cheesy performance as thick as his awful makeup and David Wenham seems to think he is in a slapstick comedy and is doing his best to try to be the comic relief (except that nothing he does can be as funny as the computer effects).  Kate Beckinsale is a little in the middle as she isn’t obnoxious nor is she looking like she isn’t trying but she is really forgettable.  Matters aren’t helped that her character is written really inconsistently as she jumps back and forth from being a badass to being sloppy and near incompetent, but the writing is just another issue (on the large stack of issues) this movie has.  Finally, the most surprising thing about this movie, is Hugh Jackman’s very underwhelming performance.  His portrayal of Van Helsing can only be described as “less than the bear minimum to get paid.”  Jackman almost looks bored most of the time as he rarely expresses much emotion in the character and delivers lines with little to no enthusiasm.  I said there was one good thing about this movie and the performances were not it.

Beckinsale, someone who isn't a stranger to supernatural action horror
films with godawful special effects.

Seriously, this could have been a decent movie.

If there is one thing I liked about the film, what exactly is it?  Basically, it is the premise.  The idea of Van Helsing is a good one and one that feels like it is primed for some really great horror-based action.  Additionally, I’m a big fan of the Universal monsters and the idea that there is this central hero who is fighting them is pretty cool.  The problem is the execution of Van Helsing didn’t work.  The writing was honestly terrible.  I already touched on the inconsistent way Beckinsale’s character was writing but this film also was hurting in its development of the tale and its exploration of the mythology it has.  There are some cool ideas bubbling under the surface with Van Helsing, but everything is presented in a sterile and utterly bland way and rarely is any element that is established every truly developed in any meaningful way.  Everything about the tale and the plot and the way it flows feels like it is just going through the motions and getting to the next boring action sequence and ugly looking moment of CG.

This movie really likes scenes of people swinging on cables.

REALLY likes these scenes.

Whoa, switched it up and went with hanging from a cable.

Van Helsing is not a good movie, in my opinion.  It’s not even a decent bad movie to go the route of “so bad it’s good” or even the right level of bad to riff on (although, it does have some great riffable moments).  It has potential (and it is being rebooted, so that potential might be reached) but with really crummy performances, even worse CG and makeup effects, and a story that feels like it is just putting in the barest amount of effort, the end result is a movie that fails to entertain at every turn.  What is even more mysterious is the fact that the director, Stephen Sommers, made a great adaptation of a Universal monster with The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser.  So, he could have made something awesome here but, instead, it is a monster universe that is jam packed with intellectual properties but light on the creativity.