There are two sure things we can predict about the steroidal "Van Helsing," the release of which unofficially opens the summer movie season today: 1) fans of Universal’s beloved movie monsters — Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman — will line up around the block to see it and 2) and afterwards they’ll go after it like Simon Cowell at a middle-school rehearsal of "Guys and Dolls."
Each of the iconic characters mentioned has a central role in "Van Helsing," an act of cinematic grave-robbing every bit as stitched together and grotesque as Frankenstein’s creature.
As an esthetic experience, "Van Helsing" is a mess. It’s dark, but not in the seductively shadowy way the old Universal horror flicks were. This has that machine-like purplish tint common in expensive blockbusters, all the better to hide the clumsy special effects. The matte backdrops are awesome to look at — brooding castles above unfathomably deep rockface canyons — but again excess makes it less awe-inspiring.
Perhaps the worst assault on the senses is musical. Alan Silvestri’s score is like two Rottweilers in an elevator. It cranks up early and never relents, aggressively dive-bombing the audience and daring you not to be thrilled. more ->
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/May/07/style/stories/02style.htmThis is the problem with studios today, they find a genre and abuse the shit out of it. The percieved road to money in this case is packing as many disparate monsters into a box with as many special effects as possible and giving it a kick. They seem to think that people don't care about plot or character development anymore. Sure, there's places for action, and places for slasher, but trying to pack all of the above into one just leaves a movie bloated and suffocating under its own girth.
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