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Published on Monday, April 26, 2004 - 6:40am |
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VAN HELSING screening - shout proclaiming, 'This Movie Sucks Nuts!' Ouch - Can it be THAT bad'
Hey folks, Harry here... I'm dying to see VAN HELSING... These reviews that scream about the inhuman torture that this film unleashes upon the human brain... it's like being told about a rollercoaster that somebody shit themselves on... Ya just gotta go see if you shit too. Can't wait to hear what gets screamed out at my audience...
Harry,
Last time I wrote a review for your website I was accused of being a plant. I
don't think that's going to be a problem this time.
I read on your website how you've gotten a lot of negative reviews for Van
Helsing and only one good one. You wrote that you heard people liked this movie
and wondered why there weren't more good reviews being sent in. I can tell
you why. This isn't a good movie and people don't like it. Whoever told you
that the screen audiences were mainly positive lied to you, straight-out lied.
There wasn't a single person at the screening I went to who like this movie.
I'm not exaggerating. The biggest laugh came at the supposedly emotional
finally that had all the subtly of a sledgehammer. The point at which the
audience cheered the loudest during the movie was when someone in the back shouted
'THIS MOVIE SUCKS NUTS!" That's a word for word quote too.
This is just an awful, awful movie. At the beginning I had hope, it seemed
like other than the vampires it might be an entertaining movie. A little over
the top but potentially fun. That hope died quickly. The opening scene has
Van Helsing fighting Mr. Hyde in Notre Dame. I can only take my hat off to
Alan Moore, who has seemingly made every one forgot that Hyde was a little ugly
guy who wasn't strong or brave. Here he's a giant monkey man, a computer
generated one. 75% of this movie is computer generated and it gets boring fast.
CGI characters fighting and swing on cables repeatedly is just tedious. The
big final fight is a repeat of everything you've already seen just with a
different background. The dialogue is mostly just laughable and when added to
dreadful Romanian accents its even worse. The plot is so silly and stupid that its
not even worth going into. Something about Dracula needing electricity to
bring the babies that he had with his bride to life. But for some reason only
electricity that flows through Frankenstein monster will do the job. The
vampires are just terrible and they're most of the movie. There's no real
explanation for why the werewolves is there, just that Dracula uses them as lackeys
even though they're the only ones that can kill him. Oh yeah, and Dracula has
midget henchmen. Frankenstein's monster is a lumbering joke who somehow knows
the entire plot and gets to explain it to everyone else. Someone needs to
explain to the director that a creature that's slow moving with a limp doesn't
make a good action star either.
Then there were elements of the script that were just so obviously put in so
that the director could force a scene to take place that it was painful.
Vampires can come out during the day as long as the suns behind the clouds, the
werewolves stop being werewolves when the moon goes behind the clouds and
Dracula has a hidden lair that has a one-way entrance but he seems to get back and
forth just fine. The most laughably ridiculous part has a werewolf magically
setting a carriage on fire by crashing into it.
Poor Hugh Jackman, he hasn't made a good movie other than the Xmen. Here
he's stuck playing a crappy wolverine knockoff. That's right, Van Helsing (who
has no relation to the character from the Stroker Novel. His name is Gabriel,
not Abraham) has no memory of his past and is seemingly immortal. Nothing
much about his past is even revealed during the movie, other than what's
blatantly obvious. Clearly, its being saved for the sequel but I won't be showing up
to find out, that's for sure.
The best example I can give of how bad this movie is is this: As we were
walking out of the free screening my girlfriend turned to me and said, "I want my
money back. I want my life back."
I can only stress that people avoid this movie like the plague and hopefully
Universal won't consider making a sequel.
Call me The Van Helsing Slayer.
And if you want confirmation about an audience member screaming out, "This Movie Sucks Nuts!" well... here you have it. Continue to be wary of spoilers... though from the sound of it, it arrived to the theater reeking of spoilt cinema...
Harry,
Julius here. I saw the Friday screening of Van Helsing in NYC. But since I knew I wouldn't be able to write until today, and there were screenings wed and thurs too, I thought you'd have been inundated with reviews. You say you want more, so I'll add my two cents.
Perhaps this anecdote sums up the movie best. Near the end, when things got even more ludicrous in this cheeseball wrapped in cotton candy fun house of a movie, some audience member in the packed screening yelled out "This movie sucks nuts!" Appreciative laughter ensued in the crowd. I turned to my neighbor and said "It looks like the audience is turning against this film". Then the most over the top scene happens (I won't give it away but it is meant to be poignant like something out a 50s religious epic, but it is mostly embarrasing) and the audience applauded. It felt like ironic applause. I think this is a film so awful it is actually quite entertaining. To a point.
The big problem is Sommers. He takes good actors -I've seen Jackman, Beckinsale, Helnsley, Wenham, Roxborough all do far better work on screen and stage then the stale overbaked ham they are producing here- and gives them a script with such godawful dialog that the only good lines are the ones that are so bad they are funny and must have been intended as such; but Sommers doesn't know how to direct these actors to pull off those lines as high (or low) camp. You can see everyone straining to make these scenes play, but the movie veers from operatic overacting to wink wink nudge nudge line delivery, but never do the performances hit the mark. A Peter Jackson, Tim Burton, or even Gore Verbinski would have been able to pull this off - known how to calibrate the over the top action, horror, humor and sentiment just so. But Sommers evidently does not. So a film that starts promising veers more and more off course until what you are watching is a train wreck of spectacular proportions. The plotting, dialog and acting in the Mummy movies is Shakespeare compared to what is on screen here. And I like these actors.
By the way, did you know Hugh Jackman was discovered by the X-men folks when he performed Curly in the musical revival of Oklahoma in London? Guess who was Judd, the "villain" in that production? Shuler Hensley, Frankenstein's monster in Van Helsing. I wonder if the two of them would reminiscently sing "Surrey with a Fringe on Top" while hanging on wires together on the Van Helsing set.
Anyhoo, the CGI is fun, but never convincing, except, in my opinion, when the Vampires open their mouths wide as snakes - interestingly that's the effect another writer thought was the worst. The action scenes are at first fun in a James Bond, Video games sort of way and finally go way over the top. The James Bond rip off is clever, but the Spider Man rip off at the end is just begging for dirision. Even in a film of this nature there is only so much disbelief I can suspend before I start laughing at the screen. But if we're supposed to be laughing at the movie, it needs to be more surefooted in its comedy. And more fun and less cringeworthy in its operatic melodramatic outbursts.
I didn't come out of the theatre hating the experience. As I said, there was something entertaining about a movie so spectacularly awful. But unfortunately it wasn't spectacularly awful on its own terms. Unlike the Mummy movies, which whatever you think of them, do seem to reflect a specific directorial vision, Van Helsing seems to have slipped out of Sommers' control. He tried something bigger, weirder, scarier, more operatic and funnier here and it all became overwrought, a big gawdy dumb disaster.
So, see it with your expectations calibrated accordingly, and some fun can still be had.
Julius
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Reader Talkback
Van helsing was better when it
was called "The Monster Squad" by The Data | Apr 26th, 2004 06:44:00 AM | Plant!!! by Conan_the_Humble | Apr 26th, 2004 06:45:34 AM | Damn, 2nd!!! by Conan_the_Humble | Apr 26th, 2004 06:46:37 AM | i cant wait for the directors
commentary by The Data | Apr 26th, 2004 06:53:07 AM | Wolfmans got nards!!! by pogo on my own | Apr 26th, 2004 06:53:52 AM | Who green light's these
movies? by Bcphil | Apr 26th, 2004 07:06:18 AM | we knew it was coming by MichaelNotMoore | Apr 26th, 2004 07:15:31 AM | yeah, The Monster Squad was
great!!! by CuervoJones | Apr 26th, 2004 07:22:19 AM | Midget henchmen! The Mummy
Returns Again! by SalvatoreGravano | Apr 26th, 2004 07:40:36 AM | Then and Than are different by misterhappy | Apr 26th, 2004 07:47:59 AM | This movie has VAMPIRES and
WEREWOLVES! How can harry not
like i by Judge Doom | Apr 26th, 2004 08:18:17 AM | won't and don't are different
too.... by willywompa | Apr 26th, 2004 08:31:51 AM | It looks like fun though??
Right? by Jon E Cin | Apr 26th, 2004 08:59:17 AM | Troy and Harry Potter are the
two films rival studios should
wor by Gere's AssGerbil | Apr 26th, 2004 09:02:08 AM | Spelling by The Editor | Apr 26th, 2004 09:05:09 AM | A one-sentence review sure to
strike fear in the hearts of
the U by Lance Rock | Apr 26th, 2004 09:57:53 AM | i went to the screening
thursday by jon-e-blaze | Apr 26th, 2004 10:05:20 AM | Dumb...but where is the fun? by I_See_Monsters | Apr 26th, 2004 10:06:24 AM | the Strocker novel? by JackBristow | Apr 26th, 2004 10:09:03 AM | Stroker Ace wrote Dracula? by IAmJacksUserID | Apr 26th, 2004 10:16:33 AM | "The most laughably ridiculous
part has a werewolf magically
set by xavier masterson | Apr 26th, 2004 10:22:09 AM | Pyrotechnic Werewolves... by Sabowan | Apr 26th, 2004 10:51:46 AM | Send in the Segal..Now!! by BankyEdwards2309 | Apr 26th, 2004 11:09:24 AM | Oh! Oh! Oh! PLANT!!! by greyspecter | Apr 26th, 2004 11:10:55 AM | The Problem Is Sommers by Jervis Tetch | Apr 26th, 2004 11:15:41 AM | splitting cgi hairs by 1 minute warning | Apr 26th, 2004 11:15:58 AM | "This movie sucks, but I'm
dying to see it cause it has
vampires by llac3 | Apr 26th, 2004 11:22:26 AM | Hahahahaaa..love Data's second
post by llac3 | Apr 26th, 2004 11:28:38 AM | As for these reviews by Renata | Apr 26th, 2004 11:37:30 AM | BTW, what happened to your
Matrix Reloaded "review",
Harry? by IAmJacksUserID | Apr 26th, 2004 11:54:05 AM | Harry, you may as well mention
that he's doing Flash Gordon
next by Terry_1978 | Apr 26th, 2004 11:56:52 AM | the first review is one of the
funniest things I've read in a
lo by beamish13 | Apr 26th, 2004 12:05:54 PM | remember when Kate Beckinsale
appeared in good films? by beamish13 | Apr 26th, 2004 12:07:05 PM | Plant from a different studio by I Dunno | Apr 26th, 2004 12:11:49 PM | PLANT!PLANT!PLANT!PLANT! by matthooper8 | Apr 26th, 2004 12:18:16 PM | I was the one who bellowed
"This movie sucks nuts!" by NiceMarmot | Apr 26th, 2004 12:22:02 PM | If only Coppola would go back
to his planned Van Helsing
Chronic by Sith Witch | Apr 26th, 2004 12:23:26 PM | What's your fave Stroker
novel? by Fitzcarraldo2 | Apr 26th, 2004 12:42:10 PM | Was the Word Ever GOOD On This
Movie?! by Drath | Apr 26th, 2004 12:46:11 PM | Universal Monsters+Sommers= by uberman | Apr 26th, 2004 12:53:03 PM | Damn! by flossygomez | Apr 26th, 2004 12:56:04 PM | Spell check, anyone? by novasoy | Apr 26th, 2004 01:02:25 PM | 75% of this movie is
GCI.......... by Audets70 | Apr 26th, 2004 01:03:15 PM | His girlfriend wants her money
back?!? by magusreno | Apr 26th, 2004 01:06:24 PM | Monster Squad...holy shit by Mel Garga | Apr 26th, 2004 01:13:30 PM | NEW RULE: Anyone who uses the
words "anyhoo" or "anywho"
should by Bill Maher | Apr 26th, 2004 01:17:17 PM | Anybody that puts
Frankenstein's creature in a
movie should be r by Salty Dog | Apr 26th, 2004 01:21:47 PM | Vampires can come out in
sunlight.... by emwolf | Apr 26th, 2004 01:49:19 PM | I'll bet the carriage that
sets said werebeast on fire
when the by SalvatoreGravano | Apr 26th, 2004 02:05:22 PM | Actually, in the old days,
Sommers would be making coffee
for ex by SalvatoreGravano | Apr 26th, 2004 02:07:05 PM | Dear God, it IS a plant... by SalvatoreGravano | Apr 26th, 2004 02:09:49 PM | PAUL ANDERSON CAN FINALLY
SLEEP AT NIGHT by JimmyRabbit | Apr 26th, 2004 02:18:06 PM | Finally by thefutureoffilm | Apr 26th, 2004 02:52:46 PM | The Mummy Returns > The Mummy
> Deep Rising by AlwaysThere | Apr 26th, 2004 03:06:36 PM | You know what one of my all
time biggest pet peeves is? by Manaqua | Apr 26th, 2004 03:09:47 PM | I'll be there! by Durendal | Apr 26th, 2004 03:14:14 PM | Do Torgo and Trumpy make
cameos? by durhay | Apr 26th, 2004 03:27:44 PM | The thing is everyone is going
to see it , even tho it's BAD.
ma by Rcamacho2278 | Apr 26th, 2004 03:37:56 PM | Noteto self, rent monster
Squad..... by Archduke_Chocula | Apr 26th, 2004 04:06:28 PM | Well, I never meant it that
way.....so fuck you. by llac3 | Apr 26th, 2004 04:13:24 PM | big, screen hyde by u.k. star | Apr 26th, 2004 04:15:18 PM | Saturday the 14th by Silverhour | Apr 26th, 2004 04:28:57 PM | The First review is a PLANT!!! by PlantBoy! | Apr 26th, 2004 04:37:42 PM | and this was a SURPRISE to
you people? by horseloverfat723 | Apr 26th, 2004 04:50:07 PM | I hope it flops... by UnChienAndalou | Apr 26th, 2004 04:54:02 PM | I'm definatly going to go see
this movie... by DOGSOUP | Apr 26th, 2004 04:59:13 PM | I can't wait to see this . . .
by Nice Marmot | Apr 26th, 2004 05:04:33 PM | Harry, you've got to hire
Julius by sprewell | Apr 26th, 2004 05:07:43 PM | Kate Beckinsale is the sexiest
tomboy beanpole star of bad
vampi by Funmazer | Apr 26th, 2004 05:41:55 PM | sucks nuts by Kcir | Apr 26th, 2004 06:02:44 PM | One stupid thing really turned
me off about VH by Knobules | Apr 26th, 2004 06:25:53 PM | Van Helsing a classic like The
Mummy by Captain DuMont | Apr 26th, 2004 06:42:53 PM | This movie looks cool by FelatioHornblowr | Apr 26th, 2004 06:47:07 PM | yeah, but will you be trashing
this movie like you did to The
Pu by super Cucaracha | Apr 26th, 2004 07:09:14 PM | to moriartyisahomo, I AGREE by Rcamacho2278 | Apr 26th, 2004 07:23:26 PM | These guys probably work for
another studio by spectrebeeyatch | Apr 26th, 2004 07:48:28 PM | To "iTylerDurden": If you
want spoilers so you don't
have to si by FrankDrebin | Apr 26th, 2004 07:50:32 PM | To "BankyEdwards": Seen
Steven Segal's commercial for
7/11? At by FrankDrebin | Apr 26th, 2004 07:56:17 PM | P2P's got Nards..... by High Grade 4 Eva | Apr 26th, 2004 08:01:18 PM | van helsing by QT_nerd | Apr 26th, 2004 08:03:54 PM | Vampire Hunter D. by john*wayne | Apr 26th, 2004 08:51:52 PM | Off Topic, but it has to be
said. by flossygomez | Apr 26th, 2004 09:00:53 PM | Van Helsing Action and Kane by Captain DuMont | Apr 26th, 2004 09:03:54 PM | Come on, everyone knew the
MOMENT those first publicity
photos o by FluffyUnbound | Apr 26th, 2004 09:06:02 PM | Paying to see Vomit Hellsink?
Har, har... by SalvatoreGravano | Apr 26th, 2004 09:27:01 PM | Here's a Kill Bill House of
the Blue Leaves flash game
that's mo by Tall_Boy | Apr 26th, 2004 09:39:23 PM | Evrything about Vampire Hunter
D. is borrowed by john*wayne | Apr 26th, 2004 09:53:32 PM | here we go again! by fanboyjm | Apr 26th, 2004 09:58:21 PM | So..where did the Japanese get
the idea of putting a face in
Vam by llac3 | Apr 26th, 2004 10:03:04 PM | blah blah blah.... by manwiththedogs | Apr 26th, 2004 10:16:30 PM | If you really MUST see this
movie... by Johnny Ahab | Apr 26th, 2004 10:50:29 PM | Im starting to get a little
depressed here by Wildcarde1 | Apr 26th, 2004 11:27:25 PM | Hunter D by john*wayne | Apr 27th, 2004 12:06:24 AM | Sommers by Mafu | Apr 27th, 2004 12:18:46 AM | some of you people truly
DESERVE NUCLEAR WAR by horseloverfat723 | Apr 27th, 2004 12:40:00 AM | Why do people keep grousing
about the horses and carriage
jumpin by Mosquito March | Apr 27th, 2004 03:09:46 AM | Transylvania 6-5000 by pogo on my own | Apr 27th, 2004 03:39:27 AM | Kate Bekinsale by pammybabe | Apr 27th, 2004 04:43:13 AM | "This movie sucks nuts" -
annonymous (2004) by themaestro | Apr 27th, 2004 07:11:57 AM | You all know you LOVE this
movie... by NightArrows | Apr 27th, 2004 11:58:43 AM | You are another idiot who
missed my point, John Wayne by llac3 | Apr 27th, 2004 12:13:21 PM | You think this is funny now,
just wait until NBC brings it
to th by WarDog | Apr 27th, 2004 12:17:00 PM | Kane owns Vampire Hunter D. by john*wayne | Apr 27th, 2004 06:17:18 PM | NightArrows by monorail77 | Apr 27th, 2004 07:59:12 PM | a guy' who's named himself
John Wayne bitching about
original id by llac3 | Apr 27th, 2004 09:43:36 PM | nightarrows by thelurkerx | Apr 28th, 2004 03:18:48 AM | uhh, words. by thelurkerx | Apr 28th, 2004 03:20:34 AM | Is Van Helsing like
Castlevania?? by staro4 | May 2nd, 2004 08:30:41 PM |
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