Why Van Helsing Was One of the Worst Movies I've Ever Seen... EVER.

This blog is full of spoilers, so please do not read if you actually want to see this piece of crap.

1. The plotline goes as such: Dracula hires out Dr. Frankenstein in order to find out how to infuse inanimate matter with life (Dracula is not only a blood-sucker, apparently, but a businessman as well; and Dr. Frankenstein is also apparently not only a doctor but also works as an independent contractor). Van Helsing is sent to Transylvania (after killing Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde) to take on Dracula and rid this town of his evil. He goes there, meets hot chick who just happens to be a bad-ass, super-modely Transylvanian who he has also been sent to protect so the world doesn't fall into the evil Dracula's clutches. Dracula and his three brides have an evil plan to create vampire-pods (future Dracula babies) and infuse them with electricity and thus life, ala Frankenstein's monster. Van Helsing must a) protect bad-ass super-model, b) kill Dracula, c) take on a werewolf, d) turn into a werewolf himself, and e) eventually save the world by destroying weird vampire baby-pods and Dracula.

2. What the hell is up with the melding of various classic stories here?? For some reason Stephen Sommers (the writer/director) felt compelled to incorporate various different classic stories (the werewolf legends, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein) DESPITE THE FACT THAT ALL OF THEM EXCEPT FOR THE STORY OF DRACULA TAKE PLACE FAR AWAY FROM TRANSYLVANIA!! And he offers up no explanation as to WHY Dr. Frankenstein would miraculously end up in Transylvania, hired by Dracula for his experiments. He's just there and we're supposed to deal with it.

3. Along the same lines, Sommers apparently thinks that the vampire legends adhered to and handed down for centuries are for suckers. His Dracula cannot be destroyed by a stake like EVERY OTHER VAMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND has been. His can only be killed by (-excuse me, I just threw up a bit in my mouth-) a werewolf. Why? No one knows. That's just the way it is.

4. This movie is SOOOO ridiculously illogical that it makes my head want to explode. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand that any sort of fantasy/horror movie requires that you stretch the imagination, buy into the idea of vampires really existing, etc etc. And I truly have no problem with this. That being said, A MOVIE SHOULD BE CONSISTENT AND LOGICAL WITHIN ITS OWN STRUCTURE!!! It shouldn't contradict itself and not explain itself and NOT MAKE ANY SENSE most of the time. Case in point: the whole plotline of this movie revolves around Dracula wanting to produce a HUGE MASSIVE army of vampire-babies. He never clearly EXPLAINS why he needs a massive army of vampire-babies, but I suppose we're to assume that he needs them to take over the world. Ok. I can stomach that. IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE FACT THAT HE HAS THE POWER TO TRANSFORM PEOPLE INTO VAMPIRES TO DO HIS BIDDING.

So let's think about this. If you could transform anyone you want into a vampire, why would you go the infinitely more difficult route of making an army of vampire babies instead?? Especially when this requires a) Dracula to figure out exactly how Frankenstein's monster came to be infused with life which is a problem throughout the whole movie, and b) he has to ultimately hook up Frankenstein's monster to a machine that conducts lightning and sends the electricity down into the weird sick pods of vampire-babies to infuse them with life which requires waiting for a lightning storm and has a billion ways of backfiring.

So the choice is this: sink your teeth into a bunch of people's necks and transform these people into an army to do your bidding

-OR-

spend the whole movie trying to get your grubby hands on the technology (and the Frankenstein monster) that will allow you to funnel the powers of an electrical storm, sending the electrical charges down into a huge catacomb of pea-pod baby-sacks, infusing them with electrical charges and finally giving them life.

The only thing I could figure is that maybe Dracula's biological clock is ticking.

4. This movie is SOOOOO retarded that it doesn't even look to keep track of its own bloopers. There is a scene where Van Helsing is leaping from one set of 6 horses to another set of 6 horses. He leaps from the first set and lands on the other set. Immediately (immediately!) the camera pans back so you can see the whole forest and *POOF* the first set of horses has completely vanished.

5. A random plethora of annoyances:

Kate Beckinsale somehow manages to keep the same plum lipstick on throughout the WHOLE movie, despite never reapplying. She also manages to have the same gloriously curly head of hair throughout, despite falling into mud and taking on vampires about three-dozen times.

In a scene where Kate Beckinsale is in the pitch-black with a vampire, we are witness to the following retarded logic:
the vampire can sense Kate in the darkness because of the blood coursing through her veins. This is demonstrated by a) the sound of her heartbeat filling the room, so we hear it from the ears of the vampire, and b) KATE'S SKELETAL SYSTEM APPEARING IN A REDDISH GLOW FOR THE VAMPIRE TO SEE. Now, Mr. Sommers, let me just point out that ONE'S SKELETAL SYSTEM IS NOT WHERE THE BLOOD IS PUMPED THROUGH. That'd be the circulatory system, which would be composed of VEINS and not BONES, my friend.

The town of Transylvania has an obvious vampire problem. They are attacked twice early-on in the movie by hordes of flying vampires who drag them from the town-square and into the sky, thus killing them. AND YET, THE VILLAGERS ACCUMULATE OUTDOORS IN THE DARK INCESSANTLY. Common sense, folks: if vampires keep picking you off one by one outdoors, WHY OH WHY would you keep placing yourself outside for no good reason? Normal people would've boarded themselves up in their houses, would have escorts to move from one place to another, and would RUN. Case in point: A large number of villagers are standing outside FOR NO REASON AT ALL when the vampire-babies attack. Instead of running inside, they just start running in no apparent direction. Apparently Transylvanians are idiots.

Why do the vampires need to shapeshift before they fly? Perhaps this is just a general criticism of the legend of vampires in general, but I can sorta buy the shapeshifting into a bat. This is a means of DISGUISING oneself. But the vampires in THIS movie shapeshift from a) looking like humans

to b) looking like terrible, sexless, mutated creatures with lots of saliva and huge fangs and some sorta albino-attack.

This does not help them in ways of disguising themselves. They could very well just sprout wings and fly, so I don't quite understand WHY this is necessary.

I HATE Hugh Jackman.

Dracula has TWO castles, one of which exists in some weird alternate reality. And yet, he does all his work at the "normal-reality" castle where everyone can easily find him. Let's see: I have a secret hiding place where no one has been able to find me for years, but I'll just do all my highly-valuable and delicate work where thousands of townies can find me and track me down to destroy this valuable work.

Dracula's accent slips back and forth between a horrible fake-Transylvanian one and an effiminate, Hank-Azaria-as-over-the-top-homosexual in The Birdcage.

Werewolves always take centuries to transform themselves. This is no different in Van Helsing. However, apparently in THIS movie, they also transform back into human-form as long as the moon is covered up by some clouds. Apparently the moon is a huge, hair-fang beam.

All Dracula's wives seem to do throughout the movie is stand around and posture. This involves a lot of grabbing at one another, writhing a bit, and moaning. Also sometimes grabbing at the air above your head.

The remedy for Van Helsing's wolfishness is encased in apparently what is a bubble of powerful acid. This acid is a) thrown at a vampire and makes her writhe, b) thrown at a massive metal gate which it promptly eats through and yet c) it doesn't eat through the large needle housed inside the bubble. That makes sense.

Hugh Jackman, whom I hate--did I mention that, apparently also turns into Tarzan after becoming a werewolf, complete with no clothes except for a loin-cloth.

Dracula has these weird little helper-creatures that are TOTALLY stolen from STAR WARS for no apparent reason--they look like the Jawas and the sandpeople breeded for this movie.

A friar discovers the secret to killing Dracula by accidentally releasing a hidden wall in some castle. The image on the wall is in some other language, and there is a picture of what appears to be two medieval knights. (I have no idea why.) As the friar stares at them THEY COME TO LIFE IN THEIR IMAGE ON THE WALL AND BATTLE. However, they do not do this later when Van Helsing comes and sees it. What triggers this living picture? Reading the text? Staring at it for exactly 3.5 minutes? We will never know.

Apparently all the characters are wickedly adept at swinging from ropes across huge caverns and whatnot.

I HATE Hugh Jackman. Even his name is stupid.

And I will now stop as I really and truly could go on for pages and pages more complaining about how idiotic this movie is. If I think up any more glaring examples of its lameness, I will add them to my comments section.

But PLEASE, PLEASE spare yourself the agony of seeing this, and go rent something better. Like Weekend at Bernie's or Crocodile Dundee in L.A..

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