Van Helsing-Fecal Tsunami
Van Helsing is big on budget but low, low, low on fun and brains. Part of the epidemic wave of crappy films with big CG budgets sweeping into theaters like some sort of fecal tsunami, Van Helsing sweeps the audience up in a meaningless wave of CG madness and poo.
Much of the CG looks very much like video game cut scenes. Its just uninspiring and boring. When you drop around $150 to $170 million dollars on a movie, it shouldn’t be uninspiring. Seriously, with that kind of money being dropped I should not, logically, even be able to make such a claim. If I was to say, the CG in The Lord of the Rings was pretty sub par, most people would just dismiss my statements as total stupidity. The budget of Van Helsing, is particularly ridiculous when considering how much more money was spent on Van Helsing than on any of The Lord of the Rings installments. Yeah, that’s right, Van Helsing had a larger budget than any of The Lord of The Rings films. If you read my other articles you know I like pointing out how much other films costs in comparison. $150 to $170 million buys nearly 3 of the original Shrek or more than 2 X-Men or nearly 2 Men In Black or 3 Star Trek movies, I could obviously bore the hell out of you with this game.
More than wasting money, Van Helsing wastes our time. You do not know the characters, you do not care about the character and you ARE disappointed when they DO NOT die. Jackman does as good of a job as anyone could with this script, but I do fault him to a degree, as he should have passed.
If I have not convinced you to save your time, here is the summary. Van Helsing is a monster hunter, that goes to Transylvania in order to stop Dracula and Frankenstein. You might like it if you are six years old and dumb as a rock.
At times it is a beautiful film, but like many other recent releases the visual effects are used as a replacement for a script. Director Stephen Sommers, whose previous work includes The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, while not art, are masterpieces compared to Van Helsing. Perhaps part of the problem resides in the fact that Sommers also wrote this particular masterpiece. Unfortunately, Van Helsing made a lots of cash world wide, so the studio executives will toss this on the “see these animals will eat anything,” pile.
Story F
Acting C-
Visuals B+
Originality/Innovation F (Childish from start to end. Honestly you can’t get more recycled that Dracula and Frankenstein. This insults everyone’s intelligence. If you are going to make a vampire movie, you need more originality in it than this, for example Blade. Enough said.)
Enjoyability Grade D+
Home Theater/HD Factor B+ (Keep the sound down if you want to use it for eye-candy.)
Overall Grade D-
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