Movie Review - Monster mash
Van Helsing mocks classic creature features
Remember when you were a kid and you, or maybe your brother, would put all the monster toys on the floor and make them fight? The living room rug became the arena for Dracula vs. the Wolf Man, Frankenstein vs. Neil Armstrong, Godzilla vs. the hairdryer.
Well, the action flick Van Helsing amounts to basically a $148 million version of that. Writer-director Stephen Sommers knocks classic monsters together and goes, "Grrr!" Like in his Mummy films with Brendan Fraser, Sommers' creative process apparently involves watching marathons of old movies and then vomiting atop vast sums of money.
Van Helsing begins with a black-and-white prologue that means to pay homage to Universal's horror pictures of the 1930s but looks more like a monster-themed TV ad for, say, the power company. A mob of villagers with requisite torches converges on Castle Frankenstein, where the doctor has just zapped his massive hulk to life. But Count Dracula (Moulin Rouge's Richard Roxburgh) also stalks the scene, as apparently the mad scientist's principal investor. Dracula has sinister designs on Frankenstein's research, but the peasant attack leaves the doctor dead and the lab wrecked.
Sommers segues to Paris to introduce Hugh Jackman as the film's monster-killing hero, Gabriel Van Helsing, who bears almost no resemblance to elderly Professor Abraham Van Helsing in Bram Stoker's Dracula. At Notre Dame, Van Helsing tussles with a giant, muscle-bound Mr. Hyde in a brazen act of plagiarism — even by Hollywood blockbuster standards — from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Van Helsing does the dirty work for a secret society of do-gooders based underneath Vatican City. He's assigned to Transylvania to help Princess Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), the last in a line of gypsy vampire-fighters. Just for laffs, Van Helsing drags along chicken-hearted Carl (The Lord of the Rings' David Wenham), a tonsured friar packing ungainly gadgets like Q from the Bond films.
In Transylvania Anna and her brother attempt to catch a slavering werewolf, and the first shot of Beckinsale confirms the film's priorities. As she turns around to face the camera, first we see her taut buttocks in toreador pants, then her shiny sword, and finally her face, framed by fabulous black tresses.
Van Helsing and Carl get chilly reception in Anna's village, but they team up to fend off an attack from Dracula's brides — shrieking albino harpies with Gabor Sister accents. The good guys learn that the fugitive Frankenstein monster (former Mariettan Shuler Hensley) provides the missing ingredient in Dracula's evil scheme.
In Van Helsing, the supernatural villains prove only slightly more stupid than the heroes. Van Helsing and Anna repeatedly blunder into harm's way with plans that are half-assed at best. Fortunately for them, the monsters aren't any brighter. In this film, vampires can go about in daytime because only direct sunlight can kill them. So the brides flap around Anna's village, even though a shift in cloud cover could incinerate them. Duh.
Sommers puts so many absurdities on parade that you can only throw up your hands and goggle at the film. A vampire bride wears a conical dog collar! The Frankenstein monster's skull flips back on a hinge to reveal a crackling brain! Igor (yes, Igor) runs around with a giant cattle prod! Flying imp-like vampire babies pop like county fair balloons!
Van Helsing hits campy heights undreamed of by The Rocky Horror Picture Show when Dracula literally paces the walls and ceiling while colored electricity sparks and his Hamburglar-like minions mill around. The actors do little more than strike poses out of musical theater, but they deserve credit for not getting the giggles in every scene. Anna intones my favorite line: "Nothing is faster than Transylvanian horses ... not even a werewolf!"
Hensley provides the only performance with a concept of emotional depth. He may deliver half his lines in an anguished bellow, but at he least connects with the monster's tormented soul — even when he's frozen in a giant ice cube with just his head poking out.
Van Helsing's monsters will survive Sommers' treatment. Classic creatures like vampires and werewolves endure because they're built on metaphors rich enough to support new interpretations. Sommers brings nothing to the table but special effects on steroids. We might have seen better wolf men before, but darned if he doesn't offer the biggest.
Van Helsing inflates everything to overwrought proportions — even the soundtrack, which resembles a mandolin and a church choir trying to drown out Terminator music. This approach extends to the stunt work — why have the characters do something creative when they can just swing on ropes every 15 minutes? You can set your watch by it.
With a narrative stuck in gothic overdrive, Van Helsing provides more humor (unintentionally) than the entire Scary Movie trilogy. Sommers means to launch a film franchise, but the devil only knows where it can go next. Maybe the sequel will be called Van Halen. It could team Jackman with the '80s band against the classic monsters — of Rock! That can't be any more ridiculous than Van Helsing.