| Overall Grade: |
D |
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| Story: |
D |
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| Acting: |
C |
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| Direction: |
D- |
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| Visuals: |
C |
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funniest movie yet this year!
by jabberwocky (movies profile)
Jan 12, 2005
15
of
17 people found this review helpful
Bram Stoker must be extremely dizzy right now-- not from spinning in his grave so much as from delirious, hysterical laughter at Van Helsing, perhaps the most inexplicable of cinematic takes on Dracula. rather than being horrified at what director Stephen Sommers has done with the classic tale, I'm personally delighted at the ridiculousness of it.
so, which part of this movie was the best? was it the astonishingly awful special effects? was it the half-hearted acting from previously competent actors? the gleeful disregard for historical accuracy that led to a series of hilarious anachronisms? or maybe the incomprehensible script-- or what was left of it after a what I hope must have been an epic power struggle between confused (or evil) producers and helpless (or hopeless) screenwriters-- that played out with a feeling of desperation as the director tried to make sense of the progression from one scene to the next? well, as great as all of those things were, I'm afraid that my more juvenile insticts have won out. [warning: spoilers and references to reproductive anatomy ahead. stop reading if you're squeamish about either.]
for the sheer joy that they brought to me (and continue to bring, every time I think of them), I must say that my favorite part of the movie was Dracula's castle full of giant undead testicles. the bloodsucker's hall of demonic balls. the House of Dracul's family jewels. the cavern of creepy cajones. huevos vampiros. Vlad Drac's happy sacks. unholy tackle of the vampire. ghoulish gonads. bollocks of the beast. the testes of terror. if you haven't already seen this delightful movie, you won't understand until you see it, but I don't think anyone could see the scenes I'm talking about and NOT think of testicles. there are many shots of Dracula's unhatched offspring hanging from the ceilings of his castle in large, pendulous eggs, often in pairs, with sweaty, slightly puckered skin. okay, they didn't look like HEALTHY testicles, but the resemblance could not have been accidental. the designer must have been giggling like a 10-year-old who managed to sneak the word "nuts" into a fourth grade book report. I kept hoping a brisk wind would sweep through the castle and all of the "eggs" full of Vlad's baby sperm-bats would rise toward the ceiling in unison.
aside from the charmingly juvenile design of Drac's alien-esque spawn, other favorite moments included a centuries-old vampire using late-20th-century playground taunts at the vampire hunters, battles between CGI monsters that was the modern equivalent of being able to see the zippers on the creatures in Doctor Who, and inexcusably shameless explanations of utterly implausible gadgets and allusions to Van Helsing's mysterious past by the Exposition Monks, deep in the surprisingly multicultural caverns of MI6-- er, the Vatican. or wherever we were supposed to believe they were. there were just so many "what the hell--?" moments that I won't even try to name the rest.
all of the leads were annoying or pointless (or both), from the complete lack of chemistry between Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale (not to mention his godawful hair extensions and her utterly absurd costuming) to the strangely out-of-place slapstick bumbling of David Wenham as Van Helsing's friar sidekick, and the smirking, smarmy, and heavily affected performance by Richard Roxburgh as Dracula. (as an aside, why can no one cast a good Dracula? they tend to get the dark and creepy aspects somewhat, but why can't we get a sexy Drac? he's supposed to be charming and strangely magnetic, and since it's hard to show his hypnotic impact on film, the easiest thing I can think of to explain it would be to make him sexy. not to mention that a mediocre vampire horror flick would be infinitely more watchable with an attractive lead-- it seemed to work for Interview with the Vampire, anyway.)
I won't give away the final few minutes of the movie because anyone who sees it should experience the same joy that I felt as I gasped and wheezed and tried desperately to laugh as quietly as possible so I didn't ruin the experience for others. just when the you think the movie can't get any more hilarious (there's an unbearably cheesy shot straight off the cover of a romance novel. oh, Hugh Jackman-- from Wolverine to Fabio? wow.), Sommers takes you right over the edge into a visual world previously only explored by greeting card artists creating overwrought faux-Native-American images for suburban white people who are desperate for spirituality. I can't say any more without giving it all away, and I'd hate for anyone to miss out on the head-shaking, jaw-dropping glee of the final moments of this film. I left the theater with tears streaming down my face and didn't actually regain my composure for several hours. Bravo, cast and crew of Van Helsing! |
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