Van Helsing Review
Van Helsing goes over the top in all the right ways.
Rousing action, sharp wit and sweet affection for the grand old monster movies of the past make it an action movie to love.
Hugh Jackman makes a most appealing Van Helsing, who in this incarnation is a far cry from the scholarly vampire hunter of history. This guy is a brawny, angst-ridden superhero with a mystical past he cannot remember and a taste for 19th-century versions of high-tech weapons.
However, Jackman is nearly overshadowed by Richard Roxburgh as Dracula. Roxburgh, perhaps best remembered as the evil Duke in Moulin Rouge, milks the role for all it’s worth in a deliciously campy, malicious and self-mocking performance.
The plot is massively convoluted, tying the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula’s minions into a scheme to take over the world.
Director Stephen Sommers, who showed a knack for high-spirited action adventure in two Mummy films, gleefully ransacks movie archives for Van Helsing. The screen teems with references to James Bond, The Wizard of Oz and a library’s worth of original monster dramas.
What he recaptures best is a tone of melodramatic excess so neatly deployed that it wins belly laughs all by itself.
The effects are outstanding, as is the supporting cast, including David Wenham as Van Helsing’s meek sidekick, Shuler Hensley as a Bible-quoting Frankenstein’s monster and Kate Beckinsale as the fiery gypsy princess who is key to Dracula’s defeat. Robbie Coltrane is unrecognizable but entertaining as another of Van Helsing’s foes, Mr. Hyde.
On the down side, the movie is about 15 minutes too long, and the final battle between Van Helsing and Dracula boils down to the same old action-movie fistfight, pumped up with special effects. The sound is also pumped up to absurd volume, so that it actually obscures Alan Silvestri’s fine soundtrack.
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