Van Helsing

For today, I will review another movie that I like but everyone else seems to hate, the 2004 movie, “Van Helsing.” There have been a number of movies that have brought together two monsters, but “Van Helsing” has Frankenstein, his monster, Count Dracula, the Wolf Man, Igor (Kevin J.O’Connor), Van Helsing the vampire hunter, along with other werewolves, werebats and vampires, and even Mr. Hyde, who seems to think that he is the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Roger Ebert described this movie as a Greatest Hits compilation. The Frankenstein Monster is in here with spare parts put together and brought to life with electricity, plus a lot of CGI. The plot depends on Dracula trying to figure out the secret behind the Frankenstein Monster so that he can bring his handful of minions to life. Because Dracula, played by Richard Roxburgh, and his vampire brides are all dead, they are not able to give birth to human children, obviously.

Ebert put down in his review, “That they give birth at all is somewhat remarkable, although perhaps the process is unorthodox, since his dead offspring hang from a subterranean ceiling wrapped in cocoons that made me think, for some reason, of bagworms, which I spent many a summer hand-picking off the evergreens under the enthusiastic direction of my father.”

Van Helsing, played by the beloved Australian Broadway actor Hugh Jackman, is sometimes portrayed as young, and sometimes old in the Dracula movies. In this movie, he’s like a professional monster-killer with a hat that looks like something out of Phantom of the Opera, who works with a friar named Carl, played by David Wenham. His first mission is to find Mr. Hyde, played by Robbie Coltrane (Dr. Jekyll is played by Stephen Fisher), who now resides in the Notre Dame cathedral and goes out to murder. His task is not complete, so Van Helsing’s next stop is to get instructions and supplies of high-tech weapons from the religious version of Q from James Bond.

Next stop: Transylvania, where the movie starts with a skillful b&w sequence showing the town mob swinging pitchforks and torches and bullying Frankenstein’s Monster, played by Shuler Hensley, into a windmill, which catches on fire. For those of you who have seen the Frankenstein movies know that the monster survives, but the mob works itself up so much that when Van Helsing and Carl arrive in the village, they get almost hit with the pitchforks and torches for general reasons. What saves those two is an attack caused by the three vampiresses (Elena Anaya, Silvia Colloca and Josie Maran), who like to pick up their victims and fly off to suck their blood. Van Helsing fights them off with a flying device that fires arrows like a machinegun.

That leads them to meeting up with the beautiful Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), who with her brother Velkan (Will Kemp) are the last of nine generations of a family that will never find peace until Dracula is dead. This is nice because if you kill Dracula, then every single vampire that he created will die with him. Anna is first suspicious of Van Helsing, but soon they work together, and the rest of the plot I will let you see for yourself because there is a lot of it.

Stephen Sommers directed this movie, whose career began calmly with films he directed like “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Jungle Book.” Then he must of have been experimented on by Victor Frankenstein, played in this movie by Samuel West, because Sommers then went on to direct “Deep Rising,” “The Mummy,” and “The Mummy Returns.” Then came “Van Helsing,” which has the ultimate amount of CGI to make a world that is hectic and violent, bizarre and entertaining, and sometimes very beautiful.

CGI can get boring when it shows characters calling from such great heights and somehow surviving, or when they fly at the end of their ropes as well as Spider-Man, but without his superpowers. But they can also be used for visual likings, like here with cinematography by Allen Daviau, who did “E.T.,” and the production design by Allen Cameron together with Sommers’ imagination for a grand look. The best part is the masked ball in Budapest, which is half real (the musicians on the balls, the waiters on unicycles) and half put together by computer. It’s a great scene, and possibly looks nice on DVD, along with the amazing coach chase.

In his review, Ebert stated that “I also liked the movie's recreation of Victor Frankenstein's laboratory, which has been a favorite of production designers, art directors and set decorators since time immemorial (Mel Books' "Young Frankenstein" recycled the actual sets built for James Whale's "The Bride of Frankenstein").” Here Frankenstein’s home is a large gothic castle, just down the road from Dracula, and the machines picks up the Monsters to just large heights to have them hit by lightning bolts. There are also a lot of crypts, stygian passages, etc., and a library where the painting revolves, perhaps to pay homage to Brooks’ revolving bookcase.

The screenplay done by Sommers is humorous, but does restrict itself. The best ones are the quiet moments, like when the friar denies joining Van Helsing (saying “But I’m not a field man”) and when the Monster kind of recites the 23^rd Psalm.

At the beginning, we may be scared of Sommers because he’ll just give us an overdose of f/x, but by the end, he somehow succeeded by bringing together all the monsters and plot points into a high-voltage climax. “Van Helsing” is silly and amazing, and a lot of fun.

So I would definitely say that this gets a recommendation from me. Watch it, especially if you want to see your favorite horror monsters together in the movie. I know that other movies may have done it better, but this one you should check out. Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in "Halloween Month."