So the next film I have chosen to watch and write about it is: Van Helsing. Oh yes, there will be spoilers.
Okay, WHY did you pick this movie?
This film has always been a byword of what I think of my parents' taste in films. This is not an attack on them, as there are times where we all agree on the quality of a movie, whether it's good ("Warrior" being the most recent one) or bad (the day we sat down to watch "A.I." is forever etched in our minds as a taxing experience).
I use this movie as an example as to how bad I think their taste in films can be, while at the same time, they still blame me for introducing them to "The Blair Witch Project", which they hated (as most people do, except me). When we mention these two movies to each other, it's more to do with lighthearted slagging than it is a critical attack on our preferences in cinema.
On the way to my parents house, I was trying to remember how long it was since I last saw "Van Helsing", as I'm pretty sure I never gave it a second viewing after I exchanged money for a cinema ticket to actually sit down and watch this pile of rubbish. But I decided to give it another go, and actually suggested to my mother that we watch it again. I had two reasons for doing so:
1. It will give me something to write about for this blog. And I felt my mum's choice of "The Da Vinci Code" would not only fit my planned writing exploits, but was too long to boot.
2. I thought the movie was around 90 minutes long, so I thought watching it would be relatively short and sweet.
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| Dammit, wrong Van Helsing..... |
And now.....
Yep, the movie is still crap. Is it as bad as I remember it? Well.....yeah, pretty much. While my hatred for this film is not as strong as it was when I first watched it, it's still a very poor, really boring, and annoyingly stupid movie.
I guess I never bought into the whole atmosphere of the movie, and while it may seem redundant, considering that the movie features many classic characters from the fictional world of horror stories, the movie is not very original. It just seems to borrow elements from other movie franchises (such as James Bond, Batman, Indiana Jones).
The story, while competent enough for a blockbuster movie, is cliched to the point where they even rehash the worst things about brainless Hollywood action movies (only one person in a group of people that possesses silver bullets when hunting a werewolf, the strong female character who somehow gets easily captured towards the end, the convenient appearances of supporting characters during action sequences, and an underdeveloped McGuffin saving our heroes from an encounter with many vampires).
There were times throughout the movie where my mind wandered off, only to snap myself from whatever daydream I was having, and go back to concentrating on whatever rubbish that was onscreen. Towards the end, I was finding it hard to concentrate, and even my mum was falling asleep, but that was more to do with the fact that it was almost midnight, and we both didn't expect the movie to go for that long.
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| This scene caught my attention because of.....erm, the dialogue. Yyyeeeaaahhh let's go with that..... |
Speaking of the ending, the action sequences during this part of the movie dragged on for far too long. I guess they were going for something epic, which would work if it was in a movie on a par with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (that only came to mind because the guy who played Faramir was in it). But this film couldn't be interpreted as anything other than a no-brainer action flick, hoping to get a toy franchise out of it. I'm all for epic action sequences, but they were very boring, and riddled with the aforementioned cliches and all too convenient assists.
As for the characters, I like Hugh Jackman and he did a fairly good job in the title role, but it wasn't enough to make me actually care about the character. Nothing about him made me feel invested in him at any time, whether it be fighting vampires, opens his mouth, or questions about his "mysterious" past. He was just there. That's more of a criticism of the material he had to work with than his actual performance, even though his accent did switch between American, English and Australian. And he still looks like Vampire Hunter D.
Speaking of acting skills, watching this movie reminded me why I hate Kate Beckinsale as an actress. While I had seen her previously in Underworld and Shooting Fish (not sure if I saw Serendipity before then, and I didn't see Pearl Harbour until years later), it was her "performance" in Van Helsing which cemented my belief that this person can't act for shit, which still holds true to this day, especially in that godawful Total Recall rehash. She is very pretty to look at, which was probably why I tolerated her in Underworld, and her cold emotionless style of acting may work while playing the undead. But in Van Helsing, the other undead CGI characters had more emotion and range onscreen than her.
As for the rest of the supporting cast, there's not much to say about them. Faramir the monk (sorry, friar, according to the unfunny running joke) was a very annoying sidekick, and Dracula was a camp, but uninteresting villain. Frankenstein's monster was, well, meh, and the Wolfman was underdeveloped and easily forgettable. The only character that I found somewhat interesting to watch was.....this excuse for posting another picture.
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| Aleera (played by Elena Anaya) |
And on a final note.....
While trying to find a suitable YouTube clip to post at the end of this article, I typed in Elena Anaya out of curiosity, just to see what results I get. And so this came up and.....ahem, yeah. Probably should give a NSFW warning.....and not come across as a pervert in future.
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