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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Van Helsing

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19:50 / 17.05.04

Anyone who thinks this was any good should be put down because they're a waste of oxygen

Bring it on quirboy . . . A stake through the heart should do the trick.

20:33 / 22.05.04

My god, this was horrendous. I mean, really, truly, hilariously, horrendous.

So much wrong with it, not least the complete lack of connection to any of the characters, a plot that was entirely arbitrary and in which our characters careened around Europe for no apparent reason, dialogue that stank (and that's just Jackman and Beckinsale), some lousy CGI, and two characters I could not connect with or even understand what chemistry there was between them.

Van's cursory snog to Anna seemed to be gratuitous, as if she was the nearest thing to him he could snog. And, even though the film takes place over about a month (first full moon when Anna's brother fuzzes up, second towards the end when Van does), but in that time, Anna Valerious wears the same outfit. And she's goiung to be sweating a lot given all the jumping she's doing.

Also, campest vampire ever award goes to Richard Roxburgh. Atrocious. I quite liked the Monster, gimpy-pneumatic-leg and all, but that's not necessarily saying a lot. I was kind of attached to the cute midgets, but they were basically just Jawas in gasmasks, so it's not saying a lot. Also, whilst Jackman's accent is bad, and Beckinsale's stinks, Alun Fucking Armstrong's just takes the biscuit.

The brides. So much screeching. And talking of screeching, the soundtrack was awful - the Van Helsing theme seems to encompas some big brass hits and then this bizarre, dulcimer-like cacophany that drove me up the wall every time I heard it.

What worries me is that in the sea of lousy CGI (and I'm sorry Warewulf, but they were shitty werewolves) and dodgy accents, a lot of money appears to have been spent on this film, and that disturbs me. It looked cheap, and it felt very cheap given the quality of the script.

I got my money's worth, simply a) because someone else bought my ticket and b) there was just a cavalvade of terrible things in it. It made Underworld look like deathlass art, and that's saying something. Might remember some more shit later, but I'm trying to forget it.

Beckinsale's face in the clouds. Adventure truly lives, it seems, forever.

23:04 / 22.05.04

I'm sorry Warewulf, but they were shitty werewolves

Then you and I can never be, Paleface.

*sniff*

23:32 / 22.05.04

Buddha on a bike that was atrocious. I got to see it for free and wanted my money back at the end. When the film starts with the retro Universal logo and a black and white prologue cum game of 'let's see how many James Whale homages we can stuff into seven minutes' I became almost stiff with anticipation that this might be a gloriously fun movie. Sam West was camply perfect and my fatbeardometer was peaking in the red with trying to match the shots, lines and production design with the original Frankenstein. Then (to paraphrase Whisky Priestess) Dracula turned out to be the missing member of Spandau Ballet with all the acting skills of David Essex and Igor wanted to be Marty Feldman when he grew up. As rentamob charged up through the castle past the blindingly obvious (and surely more convenient) unlocked back door and the monster staggered out my heart began to sink. It just got worse and worse as the film progressed. I'd list all the things that I hated about this film but my bile duct has run dry. Suffice to say that Alun Armstrong can skip panto this year, Richard Roxburgh must be stopped by any means necessary, Hugh Jackman might want to start reading scripts before he signs on and Kate Beckinsale should thank her personal trainer profusely (or I should).

Actually, I loved the bit with the cow. I have a soft spot for cows. There should have been more of the cow. I wanted the cow to return at the end, kill all the other characters, return to the Vatican in triumph and star in the inevitable sequel. Lobby the studios now - we want Van Friesian.

10:13 / 23.05.04

I think Kate Beckinsale, judging from her costume, had wandered in from a bad pirate movie or something. That was so Pirate movie getup.

I particular enjoyed the shots of nothing in particular during the first werewolf attack. You know, just swaying trees. Nice. Quality editing. The editing is pretty shocking, in terms of linking entirely unconnected scenes, or just throwing cameras around buildings - lots of CGI pan-ins instead of pan-outs that just don't make sense.

And then, oh boy, then there was Mr. Hyde. Bad. CGI. Wolverine.

Oh yes. An addition to Seth's drinking game:

four fingers for every time Dracula stands upside down or walks up a wall for no other reason than that he can.

I mean, really. The three best things I saw in my trip to Van Helsing were the midgets, the Spider-Man 2 trailer, and the new Orange Wednesdays promotion.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:53 / 23.05.04

Tell me more of the midgets.

Oh, and by "Beckinsale's face in the clouds", I presume (with a heavy heart) that you mean Kate? Cos when she was in... what was it, Pearl Harbour? Someone wrote to the Daily Mail saying that her father must be smiling down on her from heaven.

And the clouds parting to reveal Richard Beckinsale's face is an image that I keep with me in reserve. For those long dark nights of the soul.

11:35 / 23.05.04

They're Jawas with gasmasks. That's all there is to it. You'll have to see it to understand it. Kate's father probably won't be very impressed, but Steven Sommers' father. Man. He's turning in his grave, I tell you.

14:40 / 24.05.04

Well thank god that the brains of the entire world haven't turned to mush and someone else agrees how awful this was. You could have flossed with the plot it was so thin. No surprise there's been a 50-60% drop off in ticket sales in the second two weeks.

Hattie's Kitchen

14:50 / 24.05.04

This was truly a pile of poo, I can't belive I wasted nearly 2 hours of my life watching this rubbish. I really wanted to like the silly accents, the screaming banshee brides and the werewolves, but it's one of those rare times that I couldn't find one single thing to redeem a film. There were so many opportunities to play up on the camp aspect of it, ensuring instant cult classic status, but they were all wasted.

The best acting was by that sodding cow. Oh, and Stoatie, you will absolutely love the shot of Kate Beckinsale's face in the clouds. I saw that and instantly thought of the Daily Mail, and the scary baby-head off Teletubbies.

18:49 / 28.05.04

...whilst Jackman's accent is bad...

I couldn't actually tell what he was shooting for, accent-wise. My theory is that he was supposed to be English, but never actually practiced an English accent before, and so kept lapsing into American, which he does fairly well. Still, it wasn't too distracting once he was safely surrounded by Bela Lugosians for the bulk of the film.

I had a lot of fun with this film, though admittedly this did require my being quite forgiving about things like narrative consistency and often basic cause and effect. I loved the hordes of baby-Dracs, and at the end when the two lead actors were replaced by cgi monsters for ten minutes I didn't even miss them. All of this was greatly enhanced by the unexpected discovery of a newly-added cocktail bar on the first floor of the multileveled theater at which I viewed the film, an entirely fortunate development that should come in handy this summer when encountering such upcoming fare as "Chronicles of Riddick" and "Aliens vs. Predator".

20:28 / 28.05.04

I had a lot of fun with this film, though admittedly this did require my being quite forgiving

By the end of it, I had lowered my expectations so far that I was just relieved that Kate Beckinsale wasn't talking to Van Helsing from the vantage point of the clouds.

I did, however - and I think I'm alone in this - think that camp Dracula was wonderful. He walked upside down, just because he could! "Why can't we just be friends" was probably pushing it, though...

22:49 / 28.05.04

I have no problem with camp Dracula - hard to see him any other way - it's an unthreatening Prince of Darkness that strikes me as a missed oportunity to put it mildly. This particular incarnation seemed more likely to hang around suburban nightclubs trying to tempt sixteen-year-old girls into another Bacardi Breezer than to terrorize the Carpathians for half a millenium.

Whisky Priestess

21:35 / 29.05.04

I just can't forgive him his goddam stupid hair ...

Jack The Bodiless

11:20 / 01.06.04

This is rather amusing... although Seth's drinking game is just as funny.

No star here laces

12:30 / 01.06.04

Somebody PLEASE for the love of god PM me that end credit thing because I left before the end and clearly missed the best thing about this utterly worthless movie.

This thread is far better than the actual film, and I urge anyone who has read this far and is still contemplating a viewing not to bother.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

01:41 / 05.06.04

I find it odd that no one has mentioned what was, to me, the dumbest idea in the whole goddam thing: the fact that the only thing that could stop Dracula was...the silver stake? No. The daylight bomb? No. Fire? No. Cutting off his head? No. You need a werewolf to do it. But not just any werewolf.

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