Van Helsing
I finally got to see "Van Helsing" last night, and I honestly don't know what to think. There was stuff I liked, and there was stuff I didn't like... I might have to say that this is my least favorite Hugh Jackman film.
Stephen Sommers has come a long way since his "Huck Finn" years, and I think he's become a little to fond of CGI effects. Now, you would expect effects from a movie such as this, but at some times I felt they were overdone.
Anyways, I don't expect people to like it to be honest, Camelia hated it, and I could feel that through the entire movie. Benedicte who had joined us seemed to like it though. Thing is, I went to that movie expecting it to suck major quantities of ass, and therefore got better than I expected. Camelia expected it to be fun, and was therefore disappointed. I won't be watching this film with first-timers, if they want to watch it, they'll have to seen it before. I often notice if people don't like films while we're watching them, and I would actually like to see it again in piece and quiet, just to see if I get a different perspective.
I've always had problems with movies where stuff mainly happen in the dark. Even the days in this movie is dark, and that usually brings me down. This movie uses mostly gray and dark gray tones, and I can't really remember anything brighter than that.
I liked the premise of the movie, and the idea behind it, I just don't feel like they realized it as well as they could. It's good as a homage to the old movies, but I'm not sure it does them justice.
Hugh Jackman delivered a great performance, as always.
I really liked David Wenham's character, just things he said and did. He's comic relief and good at it.
Kate Beckinsale... seriously... she does good, but I don't really see the point in her character being a woman other than being a love interest for Van Helsing, and saying "Oh, my God" as often as possible.
Richard Roxburgh, I'm not really sure what to think of him as Dracula, I had a hard time buying it to be honest.
In some ways this movie reminds me of "LXG", but the difference is that "Van Helsing" will probably end up in my DVD collection. Basically because of Hugh Jackman and David Wenham, and the fact that there were some sequences I liked, and some of the dialog was good.
The character of Van Helsing has quite a few things in common with Wolverine, which is probably another reason why I'll end up buying it. I alway like Hugh Jackman in parts like that, am just sad that the movie wasn't better.
Of my friends, I expect Isen might find it enjoyable for some of the same reasons I did. Beluga on the other hand... I expect she won't like it. Only time will tell.
Camelia claims she liked "Underworld" better, me on the other hand, think "Van Helsing" is a work of art compared to "Underworld". I also like it better than "Spiderman" and "The Hulk". Basically the winning points for me is that I liked some of the characters and bits and pieces here and there basically.
If you're able to enjoy a movie just because of one actor, you probably will like it, I had two actors to keep me occupied, so I got into it.
Tell me what you think, because I'm still not a hundred percent sure. The jury inside my head is hung on this one.
Stuff from other reviews that I agree with:
Unfortunately, the story is told in fits and starts, parts of it even backwards. The narrative structure is a mess. Which is probably the reason that some of the audience fail to even notice the coherent story. Seriously.
What I was feeling during most of this movie was: Rewrites galore. We have here a movie that starts out as comedy, and then gets more and more serious as it progresses, ending up as a tragedy! It seems to me that the script was originally serious and tragic, and then sometime in the production process some Hollywood executives decreed that no-one could take this seriously, so it had to be turned into a tongue-in-cheek comedy.
Van Helsing was not quite as i expected, but then neither was Kate Beckinsale's last monster-duelling exploits in the wasted opportunity that was 'Underworld'. Van Helsing fares much better, largely due to the charisma of Hugh Jackman (X-Men's 'Wolverine' as if you didn't know). The CGI is indeed fantastic, with seamless transitions from man to beast and back again, but what i wasn't expecting was the fact that the writer seems to be working from a checklist of cliches, and not just horror/sc-fi ones. Everything is thrown into the mix here, cheesy lines galore (which Jackman gives a certain tongue in cheek style to, i must admit), and enough movie homages - obvious and obscure - to keep many film fans glued for a second viewing.
Overall, slightly scary, slightly camp, slightly ridiculous, but definitely a good night's entertainment.
Only through browsing the IMDB message boards did I come to realize that David Wenham (Faramir in Return of the King) is so popular (and deservedly so). Here, he plays Carl, Van Helsing's sidekick, a semi-comical role absolutely different from Faramir, giving us an opportunity to see the talent of this actor.
Van Helsing seems to have been written by the same screenwriter who wrote The League of Extraordinary Men. That movie had a lot of characters we are all familiar with (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, etc) as the good guys. Van Helsing, on the other hand, has werewolves and vampires as the bad guys. This film may be better than League of Extraordinary Men. But its flaws don't allow it to be a good movie either.
The film relies like many other American offerings too much on special effects; it seems every transition is loaded with action like the race with 2 six-horse coaches or Van Helsing shooting his rotary-magazine crossbow. The CGI power comes a bit, I suspect, from the dark frames, where more precise detail can be ignored and the background mattes overwhelm like dark drapes.
Hope that helps a little....
After reading ome of the reviews I see that some people are dissapionted by the ending, I liked it tho...