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Movie Review
Film: "Van Helsing"; Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale and various ghouls and monsters. Direction: Stephen Sommers
The title may be tuneful. But there's nothing remotely melodious about this chill pill courting the excitement of peril with a shrug that scoffs at the devil.
Cacophonic, shrill, clamorous albeit glamorous, "Van Helsing" is kitsch at its most horrific.
The images of voluptuous female bats flying across the murky skyline swooping off human beings from terra firma is comic bookish in conception, but fiercely perverse in its visual interpretation.
You can't but stare at director Peter Sommers subversive world of shrieking enigma where creatures of the night pounce on you with pan-visionary authority.
This is a film that doesn't only clamour for your attention, it rivets you with what can only be perceived as a feast of ferociously terrifying images taken from comic strips that you'd rather not let your children read.
The idea of putting the vampire-buster Van Helsing (Hugh Jackson) at the centre of the gravity-defying horror is clever, even unique. But Helsing as played by Jackson is much too modern and dude-like to be convincing in this sumptuously bloodcurdling role.
The director's earlier films in the popular Mummy series cast the charismatic Brendan Fraser as the super-hero at the vortex of overpowering primeval pyrotechnics.
Fraser, in many vital ways, balanced out the excesses and extravagances of the director's imagination.
Hugh Jackson is made to go with the flow. His adventures in Transylvania as he tries to nab the dangerously suave and monstrously magnetic Count Dracula (Richard Roxburg) are formulised to the point where the combat seems more spoof than serious.
And yet, you can never be sure of the director's intentions. While Sommers seems to enjoy the challenge of churning out glamorous ghoulishness, at another level his vision transcends satire to become foolishly self-important.
Every frame creaks and groans with flying objects that cinematographer Allan Daviau's fidgety lens takes a trapeze's pride in capturing. We simply swing from one over-saturated sequence to another in pursuit of an elementary you-show-me-yours-I'll-show-you-mine voyeuristic delight.
On terra firma there's Kate Beckinsale going from "Pearl Harbour" to pull-horror without missing a beat.
Ms Beckinsale plays Anna, a woman with a history of familial opposition to vampire ambitions. When she teams up with Helsing and his sidekick Carl (David Whnam) sparks of the most visible kind fly across the screen.
The visual effects in "Van Helsing" are primarily elemental. The caveman approach to technique is discernible in every frame. Monsters and vampires rip through the spectacular mise-en-scene creating a rather lustful impact.
Some of the sequences such as the monsters' masquerade party (done in crimson red) are indeed a marvel. But the characters are shallow and the dialogues infantile in their insinuations.
When Carl rescues a local woman in Transylvania from a brood of baby bats she wonders how she can repay the favour. Carl whispers something in her ear. "Oh, but you are a monk. You can't do that!" she shoots back.
Do 'that'? That's what the film does for most of its time. The narrative energy is distinctly sexual. There's just no respite from the glitter and glamour of gore.
Often, our hero strikes poses of James Bond. The vampire-busting hideout replete with Jewish and Islamic priests even has a version of Mr M from Bond.
As bombs explode and bats fly in flights of frenzy, you wonder what Hollywood's FX-driven entertainment is coming to. Is "Van Helsing" any better than pornographic gratification?
Do yourself a favour. Don't watch Van Helsing if you've no appetite for bat mania.
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