Van Helsing (2004)

Overall Rating:
VH gets a very low rating as a bad action movie, and a very low rating as a movie in general. About the only thing good this movie had going for it was the nonsensical plot. Watch VH only if you want to see a fairly-new bad action movie AND Commando is out of stock!

Why We Rented It:
Legendary monster hunter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is summoned to mysterious Transylvania on a mission that will thrust him into a sweeping battle against the forces of darkness! With non-stop action and electrifying special effects, VAN HELSING is an adrenaline-powered motion picture event Roger Ebert calls “Spectacular!”

Our Synopsis:
What first appeared to be a fantasy James Bond rip-off quickly turned into an Underworld rip-off, a very poor Underworld rip-off. Basically, our hero Van Helsing must kill Dracula so that some girl’s family can become un-damned. Isn’t that great? There’s also a little sub-story about Van Helsing wondering about his past, but I still don’t really get that one so it must not really be that important.

• Big Ol’ Naked Boobies:

No boobies. Enough said.

• Profanation:

According to my wonderful source of Family Media Guide.com, there are only d*mn’s and he**’s in this movie. That’s kid’s stuff, might as well rate the movie PG with that.

• Ninjocity:

Ninjocity was sparse and poorly executed. Of course there is a little hand-to-hand combat between Huge Jackman and Dracula during the end-boss fight, but it kind of degrades and eventually turns into something I wouldn’t even call fighting. There really isn’t much ninjocity to speak of.

• Cannonry:

This was reasonable. As you can see by the cover, Huge Jackman got himself a crossbow that seems to have a near limitless supply of arrows (which he uses when trying to shoot vampires). I liked the realism in this movie in that Huge Jackman could not hit the broad side of a barn with his crossbow. Good touch! Some stuff explodes too. I believe I recall a windmill and a stagecoach exploding, among other things. Some vampire bats kind of explode too.

• Other Factors:

I was unimpressed by the amount of special effects used to try to produce a decent movie. At some points you can definitely wonder if the entire scene hasn’t just been animated. That is not what bad action movies are all about! I would’ve made a “bad action anime” site if that’s what I wanted to see.

It’s kind of sad when you can compare what should be a good bad action movie to the Brothers Grimm, but you can definitely make that comparison here. VH has slightly more action, but I would say the Brothers Grimm had a better plot and was better produced. Sad indeed.

Overall Plot Line:
I’d firstly like to mention how much I enjoyed the fact that VH worked for the Catholic Church. The questions what and why immediately come to mind, but I find asking too many questions just leaves you with a hurting head and no real answers, so questions begone!

It was also interesting that the movie decided to tie in all sorts of monsters, I guess to give off the effect that VH was a great monster hunter. Actually though, the proof that he’s a great monster hunter (at least to the viewing audience) is only that he killed one monster. Don’t you need to kill at least two to get some monster-killing cred? Apparently not.

Unfortunately, I gotta pull out the spoiler bar and talk about stuff that might ruin the movie for you if you haven’t already witnessed its badness. Sorry, but these are crucial and confusing parts that I would like to discuss with those who have seen it. And if you just don’t care about the spoilers, feel free to read on:

*****************************SPOILER ALERT!*************************************

Ok, first of all, as mentioned in Ninjocity, when an end boss fight degrades down to two monsters fighting each other, well you can’t even really call that an end boss fight. Characters aren’t even really fighting anymore. It’s lame, no one wants to see that. It’s like the end of Mortal Kombat 2; lame!

Absolute favorite part of the plot: the ancestor of the very hot Kate Beckinsale who basically dooms his descendant by making a vow to not let any of those said descendants get into heaven before Dracula is killed. What a dick! Talk about dooming those who haven’t even been born yet! Doom yourself stupid, don’t drag your whole family down with you!

Most confusing part of the plot: someone explain this to me because I still don’t get it: how does Kate Beckinsale die at the end? What kills her? All that happened was that she got tackled across the room be the werewolf-Huge Jackman (who she promptly stabbed with the needle), and then all of a sudden she’s dead. No visible marks, no impaling, nothing. Explanations?

It’s also interesting to wonder why it is that, if the only thing that can defeat Dracula is a werewolf, why doesn’t he just rid the world of all werewolves and become invincible for all time? The wonders never cease.

*****************************END SPOILERS*************************************

Other items this film contains:

-A vampire breakin’ all da rulez! (i.e. the stake thing, the holy water thing, etc.)

-Bad accents all over the place