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Helsing (2004)
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I knew I was in trouble when hordes of 12-14 year old's flooded into the cinema to watch the latest 'blockbuster' from Stephen Sommers.A few years ago Sommers had taken the Mummy and made it into an action adventure along the lines of Indiana Jones. With Van Helsing he has resurrected Universal's favourite monsters and given them a make over. Sadly Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster will be turning in their graves at their latest outing.
The plot is pencil thin... Van Helsing (Jackman) is an 'employee' of the Vatican - a field agent sent out to destroy ungodly monsters. He is also a man without a past suffering from a strange bout of amnesia. When news filters through from Transylvania that Count Dracula (Roxburgh) is planning something that could threaten the entire world, Van Helsing along with side kick is sent off to put paid to the Count's nefarious plans. On arrival in Transylvania, Van Helsing hooks up with feisty Romanian aristocrat, Anna (Beckinsale) who along with her family is the target of Dracula's attention. Her brother has already fallen to the curse of the wolf man. At this point we learn that Dracula and his brides have been producing thousands of dead offspring and the only way for them to be brought to life is to utilise the electrical life giving power held within Frankenstein's monster. So Van Helsing must thwart Dracula before the Count finds the monster and releases thousands of little vampires on to the human population. Van Helsing comes to the screen with a mixture of high expectations and fear both stemming from the fact that it involves the reworking of some of horror films best known and most enduring icons. Sadly the film is a terrible let down. The storyline is ridiculous, the dialogue stilted and the characters as wooden as can be. Like the Mummy, Van Helsing has shorn the resurrected creatures of all their menace leaving them worthy of being little more than action figures. The film moves along at a gallop concentrating on Van Helsing's skirmishes with the various monsters, most notably Dracula's alluring brides. But while some of the sequences are good -without ever being spectacular - it is difficult to make an entire film based on such episodes. The feeble attempts at character building come across exactly as they are - forced concessions or interludes to the hyperactivity on screen. Not surprisingly this leaves the film and its characters with no depth. All the main leads suffer accordingly. Jackman's Van Helsing is a dashing action man armed with an array of anti-monster gadgets a la Batman. Gone is the deep knowledge of vampires which is now provided by his bumbling sidekick. Jackman can do little with the role save swish around in his over sized coat, hat and mask making the occasional quip. Beckinsale is similarly hamstrung with the additional burden of pirate boots, corset and slavic accent. But the biggest misfire is Roxburgh's Count Dracula with none of the menace, humour, or dark attractiveness that is usually associated with the Count. Instead what we have is an aging Goth, with an unintelligible accent, dressed in something akin to a frock - he's not even camp enough to be camp! Frankenstein's monster has a smaller role and makes little impact as a lumbering good guy rather than Boris Karloff's multi-dimensional creature. The Wolf-man is overwhelmed by his wolf side which admittedly is an impressive CGI moment. But the overall result is flat as a pancake. The tone of the film veers wildly from frenetic action, to bland drama, romance and needless comedy and back to more action. There is no attempt to build atmosphere, characters or story and so the audience have to make do with CGI effects and on screen hyperactivity. Stephen Sommer's Van
Helsing has recreated Universal's monster's for a predominantly
young teenage audience but at the same time it has stripped
them of the elements that made them such enduring figures in
cinema. While we have talked about the Universal classics for
decades, you'll forget their new versions instantly ...maybe
its best that way! Perhaps the biggest challenge for film makers
now will be to somehow give these classic figures back their
dignity and ability to scare audiences. Coppola's Dracula was
an honest and faithful attempt. Van Helsing is just a children's
movie. It may as well have been a cartoon. In the end the best
one can say about Van Helsing is that it's not boring and one
can be pretty sure that Universal will be sacrificing more of
its great monsters to subsequent sequels. Who will Van Helsing
take on next...the Creature from the Black Lagoon? Oh dear....
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