Van Helsing is a movie made by the creator of the ’’The Mummy’’ series, Stephen Sommers.
It stars Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing, Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious, Richard Roxburgh as Count Dracula among others.
The film begins with a Van Helsing battling the schizophrenic character, Dr. Jekyll in his Mr. Hyde garb. The culmination of this battle bestows upon Van Helsing the title of ’’murderer’’. Apparently he has been conscripted by the Vatican church to fight the evil of the world in exchange for providing a link to his past. Why do I think that Jackman is preparing for his role as Ian Fleming’s superspy?
The Cardinal gives the task of eliminating Count Dracula to Van Helsing alongwith protecting/aiding Anna Valerious (Beckinsale) who’s family is doomed to eternal damnation if she fails to kill the fanged charmer. To add material to an empty campfire story, she’s the last of the Valerious clan since her brother has been turned into a werewolf.
Van Helsing arrives in Translyvania with his sidekick (and maybe the future ’Q’) Carl (played by David Wenham). Before he finds a way to introduce himself and speak of his mission to Anna, Dracula’s brides arrive on the scene to ’’checkout’’ Van Helsing.
Now I cannot think of a greater apathy on the director’s part other than to turn three fine looking women into flying creatures, especially when they are more creature than women in the movie.
Van Helsing and Anna join hands to fight their common enemy and along the way they find that Frankenstein who’s shown dying in the opening scenes of the movie is alive. They also discover that Frankenstein is a vital part to the process of incubating Dracula’s children (not quoted verbatim ’’ One man with three beautiful women for over 400 years has to find something to do’’) since the Wolfman is not a very good conductor of electricity.
Several fights with the creatures of the dark take place in the movie and one has but to sit back and admire the special effects without paying much attention to the plot. There is even a portal shown, a la Stargate.
The movie on the whole is quite entertaining especially if you are a great fan of special effects, but Jackman and Beckinsale fail to find the rapport that Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz found in both ’’The Mummy’’ movies. The movie is interspersed with some comic scenes where Carl keeps insisting that he’s a friar and hence unbound by the celibacy rules of the Catholic Church, Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant Igor and of course the famous rip-off line from ’’The Good, the Bad and The Ugly’’ about shooting first and talking later.
Its a fairly good movie, if you want to let go and watch low-brow movies and a good preparatory for Jackman to play Bond. Richard Roxburgh is not as good as Karloff or Lee, looking more like a comic version of Stellan Skarsgard. As usual the movie is inclined towards the visual tastes of the male audience with cast like Beckinsale, Josie Maran, Sylvia Colloca (ironically all of them featured in Maxim’s ’’Most beautiful women’’ in the same year) and for balance Hugh Jackman.