This thread's so old it couldn't be excavated by the usual means. The Raven search can't cope with its antiquity.
For years I never wanted to revisit this film. I saw the first part of it when it was broadcast on TV, and the print was so dark that it was hard to discern what was actually going on.
Must have been a year ago that I got the DVD, and haunted by the TV experience I didn't have the inclination to watch it.
While this flick comes in for some heavy flack I'm not ashamed to say I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.
To address the wise words of Pale Horse,
I hate the bastardization of literature.
I wholly agree. However, in this case the pattern is more in line with Indiana Jones, which recreated work from the '30s and '40s. I can see that this was the intention in
Van Helsing.
Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker have been left far behind, and Stephen Sommers was picking up where Universal Studios left off. The bastardization had already been committed.
Hence the wonderful black and white beginning to the film.
The gothic locations were top notch - the village, the snow, Castle Frankenstein, and Castle Dracula. And Prague, itself, standing in for Budapest. According to Sommers Czech language issues of the film refer to the place as 'Prague' rather than Budapest, since it was too recognizable for local audiences to be a stand-in for anywhere else.
A great host of villains, too, from Mr. Hyde (who reminded me of Wolverine meeting the original Beast); impressive werewolves; some very Stokeresque bat babes; some very cute bat babies; pulpy-looking Hellboy-ish Dwergers; and a Dracula who looked like Michael McManus as
Kai in Lexx:
And facing them, Wolverine himself, and Kate Beckinsale who's always good to watch.
While Victor Frankenstein has been brought from the early 1800s into 1887, it wasn't clear why Abraham Van Helsing had been transformed into four-hundred year-old Gabriel Van Helsing. There was no need to make him the 'son of' since he was already in his correct time frame. And the Angel Gabriel thing? I don't even want to go there!
Strider said:
They had alot of cool little Indiana Jones elements thrown in. The moving red line on the map for instance, I know that Casablanka started this but Indy made it famous, and to see it again in Van Helsing was a bit of a treat. I didn't know whether to be outraged or pleased as it stretched across the screen, instead I just laughed.
The red line, which instantly piqued my attention, and the scenes that directly followed it: two stagecoach stunts and a 'Zorro' leap across a canyon, albeit by a team of six horses! "Santa Claus!" as one commentator exclaimed on the DVD as the horses and coach sailed over the chasm. Well, they
were "Transylvanian horses".
I think this film succeeds in pulling the Universal horror style into the modern age. On the face of it the movie is a big budget action piece, yet never far away are the nods to the past which recreate the atmosphere of the black and white films.