Universal’s betting that its first summer movie of 2004, “Van Helsing,” opening today, will be a repeat of last year’s mammoth box office success “X2: X-Men United.” Unfortunately, it’s a losing proposition.
This blending of horror, science fiction and fantasy genres is a nightmare — and I don’t mean that in a good way. This is a dreadful movie. I mean really, really awful. Bram Stoker is turning in his grave, as are Mary Shelley and Robert Lewis Stevenson. So is James Whale, the director of the original “Frankenstein” movie. What likely was an inventive concept on paper has been rendered as a very, very expensive B-movie — and not the kind that shows up at cult film revivals.
It starts off promisingly enough, with a gothic black and white opening paying homage to the classic Universal monster movies of the 1930’s. Villagers are breaking down the doors to Dr. Frankenstein’s Transylvania castle as he is in the midst of his creature experiment. It turns out the mad doctor has a wealthy benefactor with a keen interest in his work — Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh). That’s where it all begins to crumble in on itself, like the abandoned windmill the villagers set on fire, trapping Frankenstein’s monster inside.
For “Van Helsing,” the vampire hunter of Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel “Dracula” is transformed into a 19th century superhero with a dark secret, played by Hugh Jackman. He roams Europe as a monster mercenary for “The Order,” a multi-denominational alliance of the world’s religions that seek to reign in evil. They do this in the basement of the Vatican, apparently.
He’s sent on a mission to Transylvania to dispatch Dracula, where he meets and joins forces with Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), the last in the line of a family that has spent centuries trying to destroy the immortal vampire. Anna’s brother Velkan (Will Kemp) has been kidnapped by Dracula and turned into a werewolf. Add in Dracula’s nefarious plot to spawn a legion of pint-sized bloodsuckers, and you’re basically in over your head.
Initially it wasn’t clear whether the bad dialogue and hokey emotion baiting was intentional. Was writer/director Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy” film franchise) trying for the 1930’s matinee feature feel of his previous monster movies? Or was he going for the campy humor of Sam Raimi’s “Army of Darkness”? Eventually the audience was so baffled by the melodramatic miscues that the stifled snickering was replaced by full-blown laughter.
It’s a shame that Jackman (Wolverine in the “X-Men” films) didn’t have better material to work with, because he seems to possess that leading man quality that’s makes good box office. And what was Beckinsale thinking attaching herself to another vampire movie, especially after the miserable failure of last fall’s “Underworld”? It doesn’t help that this time her pale, English complexion has been caked with a thick layer of olive yellow foundation, presumably to give her an Eastern European look — though she looks more like a hepatitis patient than a Rumanian princess.
But not all is lost. The only bearable element of the film is the not- so-pious friar, Carl (David Wenham), Van Helsing’s sidekick who comes across as though he was extracted from an entirely different script. Wenham’s delivery of Carl’s quips and foibles is refreshing in between being subjected to the inane dialogue the other actors painfully endure.
If “Van Helsing” is the barometer by which to judge this summer’s movie offerings, then it’s going to be a very dry season.
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