Joseph Howell
“It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” is a series that focuses on movies that either have a bad critical reputation, bombed in the box office or serve as guilty pleasures. It will largely focus on genre movies, though I will venture outside of that area.
I loved the following as a kid
-Godzilla
-Transformers
-Dinosaurs
-The X-Men
-Universal Monster movies from the 30’s-50’s
I’m sure Stephen Sommers did too, which probably explains why he wanted his next project to be “Van Helsing”, which puts Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolf Man in the same movie.
I can understand why Universal thought it was a good idea at the time as well. Sommers had a history with monster movies in the 1998 flop “Deep Rising” (a movie I enjoy), but he struck gold with a pseudo-remake of the horror classic “The Mummy”, which was a huge hit and spawned two sequels (one directed by him), a series of prequels and an animated series. For him to do another summer blockbuster seemed like a no brainer. Add two popular rising stars (Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale) to the mix and you’ve got a surefire hit. Or maybe not. By “maybe not”, I mean “oh hell no.”
It at least starts out alright, with a Black & White prologue set in Transylvania circa 1887. Here, Dr. Frankenstein (Samuel West) has brought his monster (Shuler Hensley) to life. He got a little assistance from Igor (character actor and Sommers regular Kevin J. O’Connor) and a certain somebody named Dracula (Richard Roxburgh.) Dracula decided to kindly repay the doctor by killing him and trying to take his creation to help bring his offspring to life. The creature escapes, only to be burned down in a windmill by a torch wielding mob, who are then attacked by Dracula and his brides (Silvia Colloca, Elena Anaya and Josie Moran.)
The the movie switches to color, and things immediately go to shit once we are introduced to Van Helsing (Jackman), an amnesiac member of the Knights of the Holy Order. Here, he gets in a scuffle with Mr. Hyde (Robbie Coletrain.) This in particular spells out what’s wrong with the movie. Dr. Jekyll himself is a tragic figure, as is his monstrous alter ego. Here, he’s just a wise cracking doofus without any personality or soul. Like the film itself, he’s an empty vessel.
Anyways, Van Helsing and his sidekick/supplier of ridiculous, steampunk weaponry Carl (David Wenham) are sent to Transylvania to kill the big bad count. It’s here that the townspeople aren’t particularly keen on people that look like poor imitations of Solomon Kane. They also run into Anna Valerious (Beckinsale), whose brother Velkan (William Kemp) has been attacked by a werewolf. After an attack from Dracula’s brides (who are able to attack in daylight because…the movie never bothers to explain), we learn that Anna has a bit of a history with Dracula herself, and wants the count dead-until she reunites with her brother, only to discover he’s now a werewolf himself. With that, she has a change in plans to find her brother at Drac’s castle, where he’s using Velkan to bring his offspring to life.
After Van Helsing discovers that more traditional methods aren’t going to leave a scratch on Dracula, he and Anna barely escape with their lives intact. They fall into a cave, and lo and behold, there’s Frankenstein’s creation, who feels more like a slapstick prop than he does the modern Prometheus. I assume that Sommers was aiming for something akin to “Young Frankenstein” or “The Munsters” with this angle, but if that’s the case, he fails miserably. What was once one of the most iconic creations in literature and film has been reduced to a stumbling buffoon. In the process, our heroes are attacked by werewolves, and Van Helsing himself is bitten. Will this stop his pursuit to rid the world of Count Dracula once and for all?
The first big problem here is the acting and characterization. Jackman is nothing more than a dull slate that shoots weapons and says bland dialogue, whilst Beckinsale is far from her Selene character from the “Underworld” films. Instead of a badass woman who just happens to look great in tight leather, she’s just a dull heroine who sometimes lapses into damsel in distress mode. Her unconvincing attempt at a Romanian accent doesn’t help either. The biggest offenders however, are Dracula and his brides. Instead of playing a seductive but purely evil supernatural predator, Roxburgh aims for camp histrionics and cheap Euro Trash posturing, thus robbing the character of anything that makes him Dracula in the first place. Colloca, Anaya and Josie Moran don’t fair any better, coming off more like the world’s most shrill groupies than they do the Brides of Satan on earth.
The direction and script hurt the film as well. Sommers decides that using massive amounts of CG and Green-screen effects throughout most of the movie is preferable to crafting a story or characters you actually give a damn about. What results is a headache that looks and feels artificial. There are so many shots of over the top steampunk weaponry shooting comical amounts of arrows, unconvincing looking CG monsters flying and rampaging and things randomly blowing up that it leaves the viewer feeling numb. Sommers also seems afraid to pull towards a darker tone at all times, playing the whole thing up as a lighthearted joke, with actors either deadpanning their lines or mugging for the camera. You can do a dumb but fun summer movie with a little edge to it. This has none. It’s toothless, to pardon the pun (and the rhyme.)
In many ways, this represents summer blockbuster movie making at it’s worst. We go to summer movies to have a good time and at best, maybe see something that is clever along the way. “Van Helsing” is the opposite of that. It’s “clever”, empty and low on anything resembling fun, creativity and even the simplest form of escapism. It’s a clueless studio’s idea of fun. Even a fan fiction writer probably wouldn’t write something this stupid.
Though it was a hit in the box office, “Van Helsing” was unable to recover from the toxic reception it got from critics and even some audience members (the “it’s just a summer movie!” defense doesn’t always work folks), thus preventing it from being a “Mummy” sized hit. Oh, and the fact that it was awful. There’s been talk of a reboot, but so far, Sommers has nothing to do with it. It’s for the best, though I don’t think it really needs to be rebooted. The first movie was a disaster, and I doubt audiences want to be reminded of a film that gave us bad “the monster’s afraid of fire” jokes and bad blood drinking puns to go along with bad acting and even worst action. Maybe some things are better left dead instead of undead.
Next Time-A Kung-Fu spoof becomes a cult favorite.
