Van Helsing - Universal

Universal - Stephen Sommers (2004)

Necro Rating - 14.29%

Jacques Derrida often wrote about the inadequacy of language to convey meaning. Following on the the structuralist critics of the 19th Century, he discussed how words are just signs for things that can never truly be expressed. Only when confronted with such an unpolishable turd as Van Helsing do we truly appreciate the truth of his philosophy.

We find it astonishing that such a film actually made it past the cutting-room floor. The concept itself is like one of those ideas that initially sounds like genius, but becomes clear later that it would never work, ever. The attempt to meld several slow-burning gothic classics into a modern day Hollywood Craption film is pageant of abhorrentry, and should never be done. To fans of the classic films, it is insulting that these producers think that they can crudely weld these sacred relics of cinematic genius together, especially when the CGI solder that they use is incapable of holding this raft of entish acting.

The subject of CGI is one that we must dwell upon for a few decades yet. Stephen Sommers clearly graduated from the George Lucas School of Film-Making, in that most of the film consists of two actors talking at tennis ball, against a blue screen. Lord Necro doth not condemn usage of digital effects or blue screens, but in this century we have noticed that writers and directors have become lazy, forsaking solid scripts and direction and relying on these easier routes. It seems that they cannot even be bothered with live-action effects such as puppetry and miniatures. Puppets are clearly more effective, as the actors can interact with them. Proof that this style is not one that should be purused is that four years later, the effects already look exceedingly dated. Watching a film like this is like playing an un-interactive PS2 game. We can only assume that this is the direction that cinema shall continue in for many years to come, due to the self-congratulatory 'bonus' features where the team of hacks claim that they think that the 'special' effects are the "best that they have ever seen".

The 'script' was pooring and full of 'humor'. This superfluous exercise in connecting PS1-graphicked FMVs seemed to be constructed mainly out of trashy one-liners, which we suppose is to be expected from a plotless wonder such as this. Other ingredients included Year 8-level innuendo ("Oooh, a female crotch in my face!") and terrible recurring jokes, such as Faramir's recurring "Friar" gag. Lord Necro's associate, Ancestor, often expressed his wish that Faramir himself would gag, or was gagged. Faramir himself should be highlighted here. We enjoyed his roles in Lord of the Rings and 300, and we feel that this actor should have known better than to paint himself with the war-paint of this tribe of mediocrity. We congratulate him on his attempt at hiding his native tongue of Australianese, but wish him hell for his wobbly attempt at the glorious English accent. The Harry Potter-esque info-dumps - the sole source of 'plot' development, were non-sensical and designed to make the the film accessible for those who have trouble tying their shoes and reading the time.

In a film featuring a dominatrix, three very scantily clad concubines and a monk-molestor, we struggle to see the problem in filming a naked man. There is a scene when an upper-class 'gypsy' drip transforms from werewolf to human. For some reason only explicable to the production team themselves, this goon is wearing a loin-cloth under his wolven form. Attend to the earlier scene, when said drip tears all of his clothes and skin off. We find this fear of portraying the naked male body as insultingly dumbed down, as if families will cower at the sight of a male member. Refer to the Last Temptation of Christ, wear two naked thieves are crucified either side of Defoe. This is prevented from being explicit due to well placed legs. This is acceptable to us. However the means used in Van Helsing is more damaging to young men as they are being taught that their body is something that to be ashamed of.

Prancing around after other cultures in order to make them feel included must be stopped. Active exclusion should not take place, but shovelling in and pointedly displaying figures from 'exotic' religions in the "Q's Lab" scene is disgusting. In the Vatican bunkers, Buddhist monks, orthodox Jews, Islamic clerics, Hindu mystics and some African voodoo queens were all 'included' and 'represented' for the purposes of political correctness. The shout of 'Allah!' was particularly forced and prompted Ancestor, Grhwhnlth and us to cringe. The 'cool' weapons that they were making were sub-Bondian genericisms that the quality controller would have removed, had he not been bullied and ostracized from the production team. On the subject of rip-offs, the bullet-time arrow-cam stunk of sub-Matrix/Lord of the Rings band-wagonry.

The quality of acting was utterly absymal. It was wooden and stilted, but we understand that it is very difficult to act in a convincing way when interacting with yet-to-be-engineered Super Nintendo graphics. We hypothesise that at least 60% of the characters were CGI, making it very difficult for the actors to truly interact. The actors were similarly let down by the environments, of which 80% were constructed from Megadrive graphics. However, this does not explain the lack of chemistry between Van Helsing and Kate Beckinsale.

The film was not without positive features, though looking for them was like searching for a good quality book in WHSmith. Attempting to redeem this crock was the beautiful Kate Beckinsale, the harem of vampire hussies and Hugh Jackman's rugged good looks. However, as one can probably deduce, these are all superficial features. Contrary to the film-makers erroneous beliefs, these are not intrinsic to the plot, as a film should be able to stand alone without an attractive cast. As we highlighted earlier, the acting of all of the above was terrible and chock-full of bad one-liners.

All in all, not even the bleeding Nazarene could redeem this film. One may reap the good parts of the film via Google Image Search, and thus bypass the tacky, plotless plot. Do not watch, even under threat of eternal damnation.