#SCREENIT VAN HELSING MOVIE#
Sommers' approach is total sensory overload: the movie plows full-steam ahead for two hours straight, with a bombastic score, innumerable digital effects, and frenzied action almost non-stop from the first frame to the last. My best guess is that Stephen Sommers - who wrote, directed, and produced, so I don't feel guilty saddling him with all the blame - brainstormed a bunch of action sequences using as many digital effects as possible and then tried to build a movie around 'em. Here's a better summary: there's a big, loud, dumb, over-the-top action sequence followed by another big, loud, dumb, over-the-top action sequence (and the safe money says it has at least one character swinging on a rope what Underworld did for the hyperdramatic opening of doors, Van Helsing does for ropes and chains), wash, rinse, and repeat for a couple hours, eventually you're treated to an unintentionally hysterical "Simba-a-a-a-a-a"-esque grinning face in the clouds, and the end credits roll. He's dispatched to Transylvania to protect Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), the last of a proud line of gypsy warriors, and.there's some curse about not being able to enter heaven or something, but anyway, shrug off all of the pointless subplots and it boils down to "don't let Anna get herself killed" and "find a way to kill Dracula".Īctually, nix that.
Enter amnestic, Vatican-endorsed monster slayer Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman). Frankenstein (gives him a castle and everything!) in the hopes of giving his cocooned offspring life, but at the moment of triumph, the Transylvanians grab their torches and pitchforks, and the good doctor's newly-risen creature escapes during the ensuing siege.
#SCREENIT VAN HELSING PLUS#
The plot kind of gets buried in the unrelenting barrage of action, but it goes something like this: Dracula and his three brides have had thousands upon thousands of children over the centuries, but dead guy plus dead woman equals dead babies. The downside to a director having a couple of consecutive colossal hits is that the studios loosen the leash a bit and let them overindulge, and Van Helsing, Sommers' latest reimagining of the classic Universal monsters, is a two hour collection of everything people bitch about summer tentpoles: bloated, non-sensical, overreliant on awkward, cartoonish CGI effects, and insultingly dumb. It's exactly the sort of movie it sets out to be, and there's nothing wrong with having a couple hours of unpretentious fun. It's a summer blockbuster in the lean-back-and-munch-on-popcorn tradition, sporting a slew of elaborate special effects sequences, gobs of action, and a breezy sense of humor. I dug Stephen Sommers's spin on The Mummy. The bad? Yeah, that'd be pretty much everything else. The good? Kate Beckinsale and Josie Maran in high-definition.
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