Van Helsing

How you will feel about Van Helsing will probably have some relation to how you feel about the write/director’s previous films The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. For me, the first film was great fun. Sommers (the aforementioned writer/director) had really worked the script out well, resurrecting the Mummy myth (pun intended). He laced the story with interesting characters, let the actors playing them round them off well and made the well observed notion that modern day heroes should be ‘flawed’ slightly and have a comic turn to make up for it. The villain was suitably scary, but you knew why he was doing what he was doing, and it all made sense. The sequel however lost all these bonuses, and was simply an endless chase with special effects that occasionally became ‘just effects’.

Van Helsing spins between the two of these levels of good and bad. Some of the ideas involved are great, especially the notion that the central character is a Vatican mercenary that has to dispense with the world’s evil. This idea is quickly lost in the mess that follows, and someone of Hugh Jackman’s caliber (and certain mega-stardom) deserved a better role than this, for his first truly leading man role. While his other on screen creation Wolverine (in the X Men series) gripped everybody, he was still only in an ensemble cast but still shone through. Here he’s given perhaps a dozen lines throughout the entire film, most of which are spoken or whispered whilst chasing something or being chased. Let’s hope Hollywood treats him better with his next leading man job.

The rest of the cast float around the hammy mark, which would be fine for a movie like this if the script was as fun as The Mummy. The trouble is there’s not enough humour, nor enough shocks for it to be defined as something, so the cast are left wondering how to play it. The chief villain, Dracula, is played by Richard Roxborough who seems to be taking up the mantle of Hollywood Bad Guy now. He has his moments, but on the whole his performance doesn’t quite work. Far too much ham in places, and not enough menace in others. Much has been mentioned of Kate Beckinsale’s accent, (which I didn’t mind), and her styling which makes her look like a cheap streetwalker from Prague (which I definitely didn’t mind), but while she’s not outstanding she’s not bad, given that like her co-star she has very little to do apart from run (which, as in Underworld, she demonstrates she cant do properly) and look sullen.

What grates the most about Van Helsing is what has become known as ‘Summer Blockbuster Effect’, whereby the standard elements of a film from the rest of the year, such as plot, characterization and twists that provoke thought are all replaced with CGI special effects and loud – LOUD – noise. Like with The Mummy Returns, Sommers forgets one of the basic rules in life: boom and bust. Everything from stand up comedy to economics relies on this rule of thumb, and so does excitement in action movies. You simply can’t have two hours of chasing and explosions and expect the audience to enjoy the whole thing. This is why we have scenes that develop characters, leak out some storyline and maybe have a comedic moment. Fifteen minutes of this followed by a set piece means the audience will be loving the gazillion dollars the studio spent. Van Helsing falls into the trap of trying to better the previous set piece barely minutes after it has finished. Within half an hour your brain has switched off and you long for a moment of peace and quiet, if only to learn something.

There is one nice idea amongst the action though, but even this Sommers squanders away with bad production design, again harking to The Mummy Returns, in particular the pygmies. The studio clearly wanted a franchise from this, but its hard to see that happening now, but it does beg the question why they put ALL their bad guys into one movie. Who was he going to fight in the sequel? If they were going to resurrect Dracula, then you lose any suspension of disbelief, after all if the bad guy can be killed and then brought back to (undead) life, what’s the point in watching? As with Batman and Robin, the film makers would have been better keeping the cast numbers down, thereby giving breathing space for all those missing elements. That way Universal could have had a nice little trilogy where Van Helsing battles Dracula, then the Wolfman, then Frankenstein’s monster (or Mr Hyde…).

Having said all this, it is brainless entertainment and kids will love the exploding green blood and relentless action. But I just see a missed opportunity for something that could have been cool and clever.