JOSHUA:Movie Review: Van Helsing



Ok, it's a movie with a million dollar budget, tons of vampires, a couple of werewolves, a flesh golem and two and a half hunters who are played by actors who are super stars in their own rights. How could it go wrong?



Umm... I guess it depends actually on who's viewing it. Some people might have found it repulsive as that it was pretty off from the conventional stories from which these classic monsters come from or whether the action and storyline was pretty much 'baduy'. Some people might have found it very exciting and action packed with great effects. (I know my seatmate in the movie house just kept of screaming and shoting at the people on the sceen as if they could hear her. sigh. don't you just hate those)



One secret I learned for enjoying watching movies was to take it as what it is. With much of the movies nowadays being based on some previous form, may it be a comic book or a novel (or trilogy even), I tend to look at it from the director's POV or how they see it not as how it was originally written. It's less depressing that way.



Van Helsing was pretty much based on the classic horror books of Frankenstein and Dracula. However, I found it interesting enough that the director made it something like from those old black and white hollywood horror movies given a modern twist. I have to give him something for that.



I went inside the theater looking forward to just the effects and action scenes and wasn't disappointed. Movie magic has reached that level wherein you can't really say which aspects of the movie are real and which are CG - Van Helsing has some shots which are like that.



The storyline wasn't that bad though I do have to agree that the writers did try too much to incorporate the different aspects of the monsters. (The Frankenstein monster and the Vampire connection had something in them but the Werewolf part just didn't mesh pretty well).



Anyways, I'm pretty much satisfied. I got what I expected from the movie.