5/15/04 "Van Helsing"

So I'm taking a note from John and opened up a new online journal. I guess this could officially be called a "blog", since my other journal is on LJ...but no one seems to know about it, except Stef. Anyway, this one I want to try and post mainly movie reviews in, because, dang, I gotta do something with this Comm Arts degree so people will stop bugging me.

These reviews will probably end up being fairly eclectic, because, hey, I write them. I'll start off with notes from the Red Book, which is the notebook I takes notes in in the movie theater. It originally got started when Ray left to join the Marines, and I started taking notes so I could send him mini-reviews of stuff Niki and I had seen. It's usually the equivalent of a cross between chicken scratch and a three year old's handwriting, because I write in the dark. But I can usually decipher most of it. I'm sad though, I lost my first notebook somewhere, and it had great notes from the summer, like from Terminator 3 and Pirates of the Carribbean and Underworld. Oh well. Anyway.

Some info on the Red Book notes-I am transcribing exactly as it was written, typos and all...so if it doesn't make much sense...sorry. Makes sense to me, anyway. Also beware...spoilers may abound.

5-15-04 "Van Helsing"

Notes from the Red Book

trailers-"White Chicks" (this looks completely bizarre and yet I am compelled to want to see it), "Chronicles of Riddick"

Black and white Universal logo, cool, very retro...cool, bursts into flame!
Who is Igor? Sounds familiar
Frankenstein monster has mechanical leg!
Frank also has cool electric head/brain...huh
dude...whole section beneath Vatican is COOL...like James Bond
Now THAT guy is Q...yup, def James Bond...19th century Bond.
Q guy is Faramir! Holy crap! Framir is in this movie???
"Actually, I'm still just a friar, I can curse all I want....dammit." (hee!)
Kate is almost unrecognizable in that lipstick
Geez, Dracula is overacting...I hope he gets better.
wow...so werewolves peel off their skin?
BENNY! THAT's WHO IGOR IS! Benny from the Mummy.
cool music during carriage chase scene...I like it
Wolfman is kinda hot
"How many commandments can we break in one day?"
So are those Cirque du Soleil extras at the Halloween ball?
Frankestein quotes the Bible...huh.
Cool! Vamp vision!

Basically, the story focuses on Gabriel Van Helsing, who is the younger brother of Abraham Van Helsing, although this (amongst other things) is never made clear in the movie. He also has some sort of amnesia about who he was before he became a Vatican assassin, and has some sort of history with Dracula, again, never made really clear. He is sort of a special assassin under Vatican employ who goes after all sorts of nasty monsters. And yet, people hate him and want him dead. After trashing the Notre Dame cathedral, and killing off its hunchback-oh wait, it was Mr. Hyde...they should make that more clear!!!-the Vatican sends him off to Transylvania to bust a cap on Dracula, his brides, Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, and anyone else that happens along. While there he meets a gypsy girl played by Kate Beckinsale, who must kill Dracula or her whole dead family goes to hell. And this whole time they've been residing in...purgatory, I suppose. I thought this movie was ok. It had some decent special effects, and I loved the homages to classic Universal monster movies, but on the whole I wasn't thrilled by it. It didn't suck, but I didn't come out of the theater going, "yay", either. I really liked David Wenham's character Carl. It was such a departure from his Faramir, and he was terrific comedy relief, pretty much the most enjoyable thing about the movie. One thing I've got to give Steven Sommers, is the man writes excellent comic secondary characters, ie, Jonathan in the Mummy movies...loved him. Kate Beckinsale was ok...I guess I'm still used to seeing her play things like a fresh-faced Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, so it kinda throws me when I see her played hard-edged girls like Selene in Underworld. She looked different in all that gypsy make up tho. Hugh Jackman was Hugh Jackman. With longer hair and a silly hat. CJ thought he looked hot. I just thought he looked like a scrub.

A few things I was feeling while I was watching this movie-
"Holy cow, it's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen all over again." Like, an action movie that wants to get a sequel, SO badly, and will cram as much action into itself as possible, hoping to coast the viewer along on it's own little visual roller coaster, when all you really end up thinking is, just KILL the guy already.

Hugh Jackson just looks silly in that hat.

Frankenstein sounded like quite an educated man...I SO was thinking of Albert Brooks from Young Frankenstein...how cool would it have been if he'd been in the movie?

I'm beginning to miss the days when movies were made not ENTIRELY in CGI...feels that way anyway.

Was anybody else thinking Matrix or X-Files in the Vampire embryos scene? Maybe it's just me.

When Van Helsing jumps six horses and a carriage over a broken bridge, I actually said right out loud, "Yeaaaah, RIGHT." It was like, 50 yards! Geez.

I totally called the ending.

This movie will never have a sequel. I could be wrong...but I don't think it will.

Overall...if you must see this movie, wait until it's in a cheap seats...don't blow your nine fifty just for the surround sound...cause it does put it to heavy use. So that's all I have for now. I'll try and post from other movies I've seen, and if I can't do that, at least keep up with weekly movie nights.

Until the next time, this is Sarah saying, keep your stakes sharp and your silver bullets loaded!