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6/10
USA
2004 : Stephen SOMMERS : 132 mins
According
to William Blake, "the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
But for Van Helsing writer-director Sommers (motto: 'more is more')
that path leads straight to a more prosaic locale: Castle Dracula. Or
is it Castle Frankenstein? Or perhaps both? Hmm... it's best not to ask
too many questions before, during or after seeing this proudly incomprehensible
and incoherent horror romp that tips over so far into preposterousness
that it rapidly becomes an old-style night-out-at-the-pictures guilty
pleasure. Though (bafflingly) not made in Cinemascope, it's ideally suited
to big-screen multiplex viewing - even the most raucous of popcorn-munching,
chattering audiences will be drowned out by the deafening soundtrack.
The anything-goes
plot sees legendary vanquisher-of-evil Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) and
bumbling assistant Carl (David Wenham) dispatched to a Transylvanian village
under threat from Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh). Teaming up with plucky
gipsy-princess Anna (Kate Beckinsale), Van Helsing must also fend off
the Wolf-Man - who inconveniently happens to be Anna's brother Velkan
(Will Kemp) - while puzzling out exactly why Dracula is so keen to track
down Frankenstein's Monster (Shuler Hensley)...
After graduating
from the B-movie territory of the underrated Deep Rising to the
big-budget smash-hits The Mummy and The
Mummy Returns, Sommers had pretty much free rein for his next
project - a privileged position not dissimilar to that occupied pre-Kill
Bill by Quentin Tarantino. Sommers - who in person could pass
for QT's only marginally less geeky older brother - proceeded to run riot
in the Universal Studios horror archive. But instead of reaching back
to the stately 1930s classics of the genre like the original Dracula
and Frankenstein, Sommers' has ended up with something much
closer to the disreputable cheapies Universal churned out a decade later
such as House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein and Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man.
Appropriately
enough Van Helsing turns out to be something of a 'Frankenmovie'
itself: an artificial construct cobbled together from countless different
cinematic sources in the horror and adventure genres. This is a heady
(if not actually very bloody) 'ghoulash' of a picture, with Sommer frantically
chucking everything he can think of into the mix. It's hard to imagine
what he can have left out, or left back for any future Van Helsing
Returns - a prospect made less than likely by the slightly disappointing
US box-office for this $160m project.
And that's
- perhaps surprisingly - a bit of a shame. As with the Monster, enough
energy flows the movie's veins to create a convincing imitation of life:
shuffling and lurching, perhaps, but capable of packing a fair old punch
on occasion. If nothing else, Van Helsing has surface vitality
to burn - it isn't just the (numerous) winged characters who spend most
of their time swooping through the air: everyone else seems incapable
of getting from A to B without indulging in vertigo-inducing ropework
to soar over some vast, bottomless chasm - even Frankenstein's Monster
gets in on the act at one especially delirious moment.
From start
to finish, Van Helsing makes absolutely no claim to be taken seriously
at all - it's in effect a spoofy horror pantomime full of knowing nudges
and winks to the audience: The
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with campy splashes of Moulin
Rouge. Luhrmann's snivelling Duke in Moulin Rouge, Roxburgh
isn't exactly the most physically commanding Dracula ever to don a cape,
but he gets the voice spot on - just as he did when playing a Geordie
kitchen-fitter in the otherwise-forgettable The
One and Only - and seems a little more relaxed than his bewigged
fellow-Aussie Jackman
That said,
Jackman and Beckinsale make for an appealingly no-nonsense ass-kicking,
with better-than-the-material-deserves support from both Hensley (an unusually
chatty - and sympathetic - Monster) and Wenham. Though yet to fully deliver
on the promise of his remarkably chilling turn in 1998's The Boys,
Wenham is excellent value as Van Helsing's comic relief - delivering
a masterclass in comic timing when Carl has to rapidly fill Van Helsing
and Anna in on an especially unwieldy chunk of exposition. Displaying
the witty economy last seen in Deep Rising, Sommers has Carl deliver
a breakneck lecture illustrated by paintings, woodcuts, maps and drawings
through which Jackman and Beckinsale somehow manage to keep straight faces.
Thankfully, we're under no such obligation.
26th May,
2004
(seen 10th May : UGC, Boldon : public show)
by Neil
Young
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