Van Helsing Reviewed! Read Before Watching!

It's 3 am and I've just returned from the two hours of dreck that is Van Helsing. For any of my gentle readers who may even be considering watching this Stephen Sommers fiasco, I only have one word of advice: don't. Get a McValue meal. Buy a secondhand book. Donate to charity. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING is better deserving of your RM 10 than this.

My mind is still staggered, trying to piece together the reasons why this is such a bad film. Maybe it's the nonexistent plotline that throws several different subplots at you while simultaneously going nowhere, fast. Then there's the overabundance of generally poor CGI and editing. It could also be the atrocious C-grade acting from the cast (try the word "wooden") and their horrible switcheroo accents. Hell, I can even be mean and blame Kate Beckinsale. But that wouldn't be fair. To really understand why Van Helsing doesn't deserve your time would require you to watch it, and that is something I don't have the heart to ask you all to do.

Sommers, what happened to you? I was pleasantly entertained by The Mummy and its sequel (though slightly less so) and thus I had a faint hope that Van Helsing would provide the campy B-movie humour of those earlier flicks. No such luck here. With the exception of the first three minutes (which is a marvellously done piece of camp) this movie is a confused mess. It doesn't know if it's a serious superhero flick, an adventure story, or a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the great monsters of our time. As a result, VH pelts you with too many things at once such as contrived plot sequences and coincidences (that all work for the hero anyhow), really thin 2D characters who abuse every single cliche under the sun and scriptwriting that sounds like it was done by the guys who wrote the early episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. After the titular character drops his nifty gas powered ubercrossbow for the umpteenth time, you'll really feel like killing HIM with it instead of the vampires. And heck, Count Dracula even gets to say THIS overused line:

"You can't kill me, I'm already dead."

Does it make sense that I'm dreading the Punisher since it features the exact same line? And in the trailer, no less. I have a feeling Sommers had something along the lines of the Mummy films when he first started writing it. Then he discovered how cool CGI could look and for some reason or other, left out the whole part of the script that required any actual acting.

Take Kate Beckinsale, for instance. She speaks with a horrendous East European accent, does backflips, and states the obvious about 50% of the time. Now if this were a one off thing, it wouldn't be so bad. It's just that she's all but fudged all her previous films as well, and literally murders her Anna Whatshername role here. Hugh Jackman, on the other hand looks trapped. He doesn't know if he's supposed to be all broody and dark like Batman or wise cracking and funny like Indiana Jones. Hence VH as a person never really goes anywhere. You could put ANY actor in his place and achieve a similar amount of woodenness. Richard Roxburgh as Count Dracula would have worked better without the accent (again!!). He's always been a cool baddie, and I'd hate for him to be relegated to B-movie land. It's a shame because the character was written so badly.

Now comes the point where I try to say something positive about the whole thing. Let's see. It's got passable CGI, good set pieces and perhaps the best rendition of a man transforming into a werewolf I've seen so far. Here's another thing (though I'm not sure if it's really good): the character of Frankenstein's monster, though mostly digital effects has more personality than Jackman and our Kate combined. I think I'm done.

Perhaps in 10 years or so, VH will be recognised as a cult classic simply because it's a wonderful example of how NOT to do a horror action adventure flick. Until that time however, take my word for it and wait for it to come on TV. Even then, if there's a footie match, you're better off watching THAT.

The Ox reluctantly gives Van Helsing a 1 out of 5.

To look at other rotten reviews of VH, lookie here.