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Monster Mashed
Van Helsing does more damage than all of it's legendary villains combined.

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Shuler Hensley, Kevin J. O'Connor
Director: Stephen Sommers

Reviewed by Kevin Cunningham

THE PITCH: The mythical monster hunter Van Helsing must take on Dracula, who has united some legendary mythical villains to unleash an evil of mythical proportions.
IN OTHER WORDS: The League of Extradordinary Gentlemen gone evil meets The Punisher.

"I am sooo firing my agent."

When movies are bad, one mathematical equation almost always applies: the bigger the bomb's budget, the more howlingly ridiculous it is. This is definitely the case of Van Helsing, which lives up to every bad rule of Hollywood filmmaking excess and unashamedly puts it out there in all it's glory, if you can call it that.

The storyline is simple enough: bring together all of cinema' classic (and campy) movie villains and put them in one movie. The only missing part was finding the right anti-villain to oppose them, and in such, they come up with Van Helsing from the Dracula stories. Unfotunately, his character has become so perverted from Bram Stoker's novel that he is unrecognizable from the man portrayed by Anthony Hopkins years ago: he is now a comic book hero of the worst kind: a mix of Batman and The Exorcist. On the other end is just about every movie villain in schlock horror. Aside from the over publicized Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and Wolfman, you get the ever-assisting in evil Igor, a Mr. Hyde straight out of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman playing stand-in for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula's far too sexy wives, Vampiric offspring that best resemble El Chupacabras, and a bunch of tiny henchmen for Dracula whom can only be described as the Jawas from Star Wars fame. Heck, one of the Transylvanian town's residents even bears a disturbing similarity to Riff Raff, the butler from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. About the only monster not seen in this film is the one who starred in director Stephen Sommer's pervious films, The Mummy.

Enter Hugh Jackman. I like him, a lot. Since bursting onto the scene as the fill-in actor for actual comic book hero Wolverine in X-Men, he's been fun to watch, even in his occasional forays into romantic comedy. He takes on this role with unexpected seriousness, growling his lines and glaring at everyone. His counterpart in the monster hunting is Kate Beckinsale, of Underworld fame. This time, instead of being a vampire who kills werewolves, she kills vampires and has a connection to the werewolves.

Stop me if you've heard this one. A friar, Wolverine, and Frankenstein walk into a bar...

I am quite sure that Beckinsale's new husband, Len Wiseman, the writer director of Underworld, was not thrilled to hear his vampire temptress say in a press interview that she'd rather be a werewolf than a vampire. Someone was forgetting about her upcoming commitments.

Unfortunately, Van Helsing has none of the stylish cool that Underworld had, even through it's worst moments. Instead, this effort almost revels in unintentional camp. It never quite figures out if the 'villains' of the film should be sympathetic tragedies or simply deliciously maleficent, and unfortunately, the indecision leaves all the truly starring characters quite boring, particularly Dracula. Played by Richard Roxburgh, Dracula has lost all his bite. He's not extravagant, he's not romantic or seductive, he's not even particularly evil. He has none of the qualities that have made him the most portrayed onscreen character in film history. Frankenstein's Monster barely resembles his former incarnations. He's a little smarter, and looks and hobbles around like a 19th century version of the Borg trying to do the robot dance. And then there's the Wolfman, who looks like the animated fighter from the Darkstalkers video game.

"Blessed be the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!"

I really tried to look for things I liked about this film, and all I could come up with was this: First, one of Dracula's wives is played by Josie Maran, a girl who grew up in nearby Menlo Park, CA. It's nice to see American-born supermodels these days (even if she's doing the worst Transylvanian accent since Leslie Nielsen brought his own particular brand of dignity to the fangs), and then, Van Helsing wears a very nice hat.

The result would be laughable if it weren't so damned stupid. Apparently, Dracula doesn't apply to the old vampire rules, so sunlight, fire, and wooden stakes don't kill him. Then there's Van Helsing's monk version of Q, a bumbling gadget man who follows Van Helsing around like a puppy. And finally, there's the attempt at a sympathetic plot, revealing the human side of the monsters, and the supposedly emotional farewell at the end of the film to the Beckinsdale's Anna character. It almost makes you hope the loss of the female will be enough to keep a sequel from being made.

But then, that might be the last rule of Hollywood excess as yet unbroken by this film: ridiculous reasons for a character's return for the pointless sequel.

A Smartass caption is unnecessary.

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