VAN HELSING:

Well I like monster movies and I like Kate Beckinsale so, yeah I liked "Van Helsing".
So this movie opened big and then all of a sudden word circulated that the movie sort of sucked.

Well, it's not that bad.

I liked how the whole thing opened in black and white just like one of the old classic Universal Horror movies. Basically this is a movie made by someone who loved those old monster movies and he wanted to update and reinvent them for new audiences. The classic old monsters are sort of ineffective now. They seem bland and as scary as plastic Halloween costumes.

The new ones here aren't actually fear-inducing but they are sort of mesmerizing to look at. But this is where one of the problems start. If you're someone who loves creatures done in lots of computer effects then you'll really like this movie. But if computer effects seem overdone and overused to you, then you're going to start getting real bored. After a while it does sort of seem like you're watching a video game with a computer effects werewolf fighting a computer effects vampire. But it's still fun because the action scenes are so "out there" and over the top. It's like "Indiana Jones" meets "Underworld".

There's a lot of weird quick change transmogrification scenes. The werewolves rip off their human skin to reveal their wolf sides underneath. Sort of like in "Company of Wolves" but not as scary. There is one scene where a werewolf rips off the skin becomes a wolf then regresses back to human form and all of a sudden he's wearing shorts, and the audience is reaction is "Huh??!. uh..ok.." Then there are lots of scenes with people grabbing wires and vines and grappling hook lines and swinging like Tarzan again and again. It was cool when it happened that one time in "Romancing the Stone" because it was pure luck that the characters happened to swing across a chasm. But here it happens WAAAAAAy too much. And that is distracting and sort of groaningly bad and tedious after a while.

It almost becomes like a horrible joke when even Frankenstein is swinging around. But actually Frankenstein is one of the best characters in the film. This one is like a hardcore combination of the Boris Karloff and Mary Shelley version. He looks like the old Boris Karloff one (except that he's constantly brimming with electrical energy and he's totally looks like a patchwork man of body parts and circuits, in one scene, his head splits open a bit and you get to see exactly how good the Doctor was with his skills) but the monster acts like the Mary Shelley book version because he can talk and think and is very aware of emotional pain..like loneliness and deep rage. He reads and can quote the bible. He hates the Doctor who created him but feels sadness and loss when the doctor dies. He can recognize the difference between true evil (Dracula) and a weak soul that is corrupted by evil (like Dr. Frankenstein). As it turns out Frankenstein (actually Frankenstein's monster but they just call him "Frankenstein" here) is probably the most deeply rendered character in the film.

As the monsters go, he and the "special surprise" monster near the beginning of the film are the coolest ones in the movie. (The special surprise one is like a cross between "Wolverine" and the "Hulk", he even smokes cigars.) Dracula is neat the way he changes into a giant bat-thing. But his accent really is rather bad and he has no real charisma. It's not like Bela Lugosi or even that Dracula in that "Buffy" episode. It's just not a very cool Dracula. But the Dracula brides are great. Except that they shriek a bit too much in an over-acting way when they try to convey grief. But they're still cooler than Dracula. There's actually more than one werewolf in the film. The main one is more of a servant and a slave to his affliction. It's not like in "Underworld" where the afflicted one used it as a weapon( ...well maybe except for the scene at the end..)

The werewolves look cool but I guess they seemed scarier and more awe-inspiring in "Underworld". Here they are just really fast, big, hairy things that can jump really far. They are wild things that are extremely hard to catch and control. At least things at the end the movie hint at how truly dangerous they can be. As for Van Helsing himself. He's really cool. Hugh Jackman plays it very well. Somehow he plays this really out there, larger than life character in this almost down to earth and believable way. The same way he played "Wolverine" in the way where you just accepted that he was this guy who had claws that could pop out of his hands. Van Helsing has a tortured and mysterious past. He's extremely good at killing things, he's essentially a "monster assassin" but he doesn't enjoy what he does. It's a duty he has to perform. So that was a neat touch. He's not some glory- hungry, wise-cracking monster hunter.

Kate Beckinsale's gypsy character is right out of those old vampire films. She looks great and I though her Romanian accent was neat. But then again I think pretty much anything she does is cool. There's not much depth to her character there's something about ending a family curse before her family is doomed to never gain entrance to heaven..but that's just something to make her really want to kill Dracula.

There's not much depth in the film. There's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be the roller coaster fun ride of a special effects extravaganza. And that's what it is. You'll watch it say "wow" a few times. Be numbed a bit by the relentless barrage of special effects. Get up when it's done stretch a bit maybe notice that the end credits sequence has come cool graphics and about 200 stunt-people listed. You'll smile numbly at your friends and say "well that was kind of cool" and that'll be it. It won't blow you away. It's not as bad as the "Mummy returns" maybe a bit better than "the Mummy" (the director's other films) but it won't totally astound you like the first time you saw "Starship Troopers" or "Terminator 2" It's more like the 15th time you saw those movies where most of the initial "awe" effect had worn off.

And there you go. Scale of 1 to 10?..maybe 7 How does it rank with the other recent movies I've seen? Well my favorites from the last month or so have been: "Man on Fire", "Mean Girls" and "Ella Enchanted". Below that I liked "the Punisher" and "Van Helsing" but they sort of left me wishing they had been something more.