Van Helsing

[serafina20]

Never has a movie managed to hit so many of my pet peeves all at once. It was actually rather impressive the way it was done.

I need to clense my mental palate.

Comments

[lastscorpion.livejournal.com]

Heh heh heh. The guy that reviewed Van Helsing for the Chronicle compared the script unfavorably with something that chimps could do with an Etch-a-Sketch.

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

The guy that reviewed Van Helsing for the Chronicle compared the script unfavorably with something that chimps could do with an Etch-a-Sketch.

Yup, I pretty much agree. Someone, at some point, needed to say "NO" to Steven Sommers, or whatever his name was. There was a good idea somewhere in the movie, but it was surrounded by about fiteen million bad ones.

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

Never has a movie managed to hit so many of my pet peeves all at once. It was actually rather impressive the way it was done.

Yeah? How so?

I agree that there definitely were a number of bad ideas in the movie, but overall, I enjoyed it.

Part I

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

A. Mr. Hyde. I've decided that no one is allowed to do anythign with Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde again, ever. Even Mary Riley, which I like in some ways, wasn't right, and I'm tired over everyone screwing it up.

B. The vampires. If you want to play with the overdramatic and cheesy Universal monster movies, then everyone has to do it. Not just the vampires. The wives bugged the crap out of me. Dracula made no sense. If he feels nothing, cares for nothing, is nothing but a body that wont' die, then why does he care so much if his offspring live? He should have been using the Frankenstein monster to find a way to end his life, not bring life for a bunch of monsters.

C. Werewolves are only wolves is the moon isn't hidden by clouds. This bugs me to no end, because if you're going to say soemthing *stupid* like that, then you have to draw it to it's logical conclusion. Because the logic is that the moon has to be unblocked to cause the transformation. That means, if a werewolf is in a cave, or in a building or under and overhand, or unde a tree, they're not going to turn into a wolf. It'd be like POTC, where their true form was only shown by moonlight. The problem is, the wolves are still wolves if they're inside. It's only when the moon isn't blocked that they're not, and it's stupid.

D. The relationship between Dracula and Van Helsing. Probably one of the most important things in the entire movie, and it was never satifactorily explained. Yes, you sort of get it at the very end as a few toss away lines, but you don't throw it away like that. It could have been really great but, he couldn't do a good explanation reveal because ...

E. Only a werewolf can kill Dracula. That was the straw, I think, that broke the movie. Bad enough when Faramir was waving around the Heart of Vesuvis at the beginning saying that he didn't know what it was for. It was the most poorly constructed reveal of the "gun" I've seen, because Sommers didn't even try to hide the fact that THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE!!!! I was relieved when it *wasn't* used to kill Dracula, because of the way it was introduced. But, no, we actually got something worse becuase Dracula's death was so contrived and made no sense. This Dracula doesn't turn into a wolf. He has no relationship with wolves. Wolves do not run in the family of the person who'd orignally killed Dracula. Kate Beckinsale's brother was unfortunately attacked by one, not destined to become one. So the ending read a lot like, "Oh, I get it. Only a werewolf can kill Dracula. What will we ... Wait a minute! What fantastic luck, Van Helsing. You just happened to be bit by a werewolf just today. WOnderful! Now, *you* can kill Dracula. Oh, thank God that happened; I was worried I might have to come up with something that made more sense."

The thing is, he *had* something that made more sense. Van Helsing was the one who had originally killed Dracula. So, why can't he be the only one who is able to kill Dracula. They both seem to be immortals. Both made deals with their respective gods in order to prolonge their life. So why not have Dracula and Van Helsing locked in an eternal battle where only one of them can kill the other?

Oh, right. Becuase we have a huge special effects budget that we need to use. How silly of me, thinking of the story first.

Part II

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

F. There is no 'final straw' in an action movie, unless it has been stated out loud that someone has a broken rib or one more blow will do them in. Which means, no matter how many time Kate Beckinsale was pushed around and dropped from great heights or whatever, she should not have died at the end. She only died to A. make Van Helsing sad (and to see her family get into heaven, which could have been done without her deaht) and B. make way for a new love interst in the sequels, where Van Helsing will fight the monster who didn't appear in the move.

G. Too many monsters.

H. A lack of irony and self awarness. When the bridge was blown to pieces as Faramir was trying to cross it with the werewolf serum, he should have reacted to the ridiculousness of the situation. Because it was ridiculous.

I. A poor man's Benny. Stephen Sommers even used the same actor, but Igor wasn't half as good.

J. The ball scene. Poorly constructed, poorly done, boring as hell, and since it was never stated, ever, that Dracula had the ability to mesmerize people, too much reliance on the audience understanding what was going on. I've reserached Dracula nad I was confused.

K. You can make your vampires erotic, or you can make them monsters. If you want to do both, still try to keep the two well defined. The mouths extending like they did was disgusting espcially since vampires don't eat flesh; they suck blood, hence the fangs. You dont' need to open your mout that wide to slice into a vein. I liked the bat things they turned into, but the mouths were over the top.

I think that might be it. I originally thought the offspring idea was stupid,b ut that was because of the execution. It could have been interesting, but due to poor execution and a writer/director who was never told "No" when he really needed to be, it was bad.

Re: Part II

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

I had to explain that the corset was too tight and VH's huge ass crushed her ribs.

And what's frustrating at having to explain that is how many times she should have already been dead because of the same reasons.

H - Faramir? How clueless was I? Damn, how low we have gone dear Faramir.

My friend is the one who caught that. I've only seen TTT and RoTK once each, so I probably wouldn't have recognized him.

In Buffy/Angel, they show the victims with two fan marks on their necks, yet when you see the vamps, they have distorted and jagged teeth. How do you get only two fang marks from that?

That's why I prefer "classic" fangs: sharper, longer versions of what we already have. Kind of like Tom Welling's. ;)

If the Brides are dead, and the babies are born dead, how in fact are they created? Don't you need life to create? Are they laid, like eggs, in those sacks?

I guess I can buy that they're somehow producing corpse off-spring somehow, just because I'm happy whenever vampires have the ability to have sex. Anne Rice traumatized me, yo. And it's possible that this is part of the deal that Dracula struck with the Devil: to form a legion of demons via his brides. So that I'm semi okay with.

What I don't understand is how a reanimated corpse contains the key to life. It seems that the Frankenstein monster should only show that it's possible life can be created with electricity, not be the conduit. I would think that you need either a 1. living being (like a werewolf or human) to run the electricity through and transfer the life-essence to the baby corpses, or 2. a vampire to run the electricity through, because they're reanimation is closer to what the babies need or c. just electricity. I don't get why they needed Frankenstein. It seemed almost counter-intuative to me.

I'm thinking way to0 hard about this moive, aren't I? ;)

Re: Part I

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

A - the cgi for this was horrible.

Oh, God, yes it was. And they hurt Notre Dame, which was just *wrong*.

B - Could the brides have been any campier?

If the entire movie had been like that, I think it would have been fun. In the beginning, Frankenstein was pretty campy, but I thought that was the point. It seemed like a satire of the old movies, and I enjoyed that. But you can't have some actors to the parody and others not, so it didn't work.

C - Point. And why is it that Van Helsing was able to control his animal side long enough to go specifically after Drac?

Because. He's Van Helsing, that's why!

D - Also, I would have thought Drac would have wanted, in spite of them trying to kill him, to keep Anna and her family alive. They are descendents of his after all.

I thought they were descendants of Van Helsing's. Or, whoever it was that originally killed Dracula.

She asked me why he doesn't just kill him and be done with it? I said because we still have 15 minutes left of this travesty.


LOL. Exactly. :)

Re: Part I

[serafina20.livejournal.com]

When Faramir is giving them the low down he says that Drac was the son of one of Anna's realtives. Some great, great, great something or other. Anna then says, of course, everyone knew that

Right, I wasn't listening at that point. I was still lamenting the lameness that was the ball scene.

So when was it that Drac made the deal with the devil?

After he was killed, I think. I don't remember when they said it in the movie, but I do remmeber there was a visual aid. And it's something I've heard before about Dracula, so it stuck out.