|
The problems with this film are manifold, but most of them originate from a lazy script that sacrifices a proper set-up and
character development for the sake of pacing. The result of this is that, for all of the spectacle that this film throws at
us, we care little about the actual outcome. To be fair to Sommer's, with this film he does make a couple of attempts to put
some heart into it, but they're so ham-fisted that they end up evoking laughter rather than the intended emotion. As an
example, there is one scene where Van Helsing gazes wistfully up into the sky and has a vision of another character amongst
the clouds. Yuk!
The dialogue in this film is uniformly poor, there are very few decent one-liners and it's often clumsy and exposition heavy,
of the, "Ah Van Helsing, when we found you years ago on the church steps with your memory gone" type. It also goes to great
pains to make sure that even the simplest mind can follow it. In the films opening section a priest gives Van Helsing an
object, and it’s hard not to expect a big green arrow to appear, pointing at the object, with the text ‘Remember this – It’s
important!’ Another example of this is later on the film when Jackman and Beckinsale are walking through a hall that’s
filled with loads of egg/cocoon type objects hooked up to electrical wires. Jackman sagely intones something along the lines
of "It looks like Dracula’s trying to bring these to life!" It really doesn’t, but that’s what’s happening anyway and this
film doesn’t trust you to with enough information to work it out for yourself.
David Wenham, Kevin J. O Connor and Shuler Hensley are the recipients of the best lines and, incidentally, the only cast
members who come out of this with any dignity, everybody else should just hang their heads in shame... Hugh Jackman, so good
as Wolverine, seems badly miscast here and also totally lost. The two
X-Men
movies, and Swordfish show that Jackman has
got a good handle on delivering hard-boiled putdowns. That ability doesn't seem to translate too well to the kind of glib,
throwaway one-liners that this script asks him to deliver. Kate Beckinsale (who's hotter than the Sun but whose acting
ability is about to get seriously reconsidered) heads up the bad accent brigade as Gypsy Princess 'Anna Valerious.' Clad in
a pair of tight black trousers (God bless you, Stephen!) Beckinsale acquits herself well in the physical scenes but with
regards to any required emoting, she's phoning it in here. Why Sommers didn't let the cast speak in their own accents is
going to be one of life's unanswered questions, well, only until this film fades from memory (about five minutes).
Troy
has shown that a disconcertingly wide array of accents doesn't necessarily harm 'suspension of disbelief,' but a cast of
people "torking like zis" kicks it right out the window.
Onto Richard Roxburgh who has created something truly wonderful in his portrayal of Dracula. Not since Bobby Ray Schafer
lit up the screen as Officer Joe Vickers in the original Psycho Cop, has a villainous character been less threatening and
this inherently funny. Roxburgh camps it up to the nth degree, lisping and damn near mincing his way up walls and across
ceilings, leaving mangled lines of bad dialogue in his wake. It is truly a sight to behold. Roxburgh's lisping, along with
the thick accent he puts on, leaves a good 40% of his direlogue unintelligible, with any luck these lines will be subtitled
on the eventual DVD release. Also, for a character who's torment is partly that he cannot feel emotion' Roxburgh spends a
good portion of this movie bellowing his lines like Al Pacino on crack. The "I am hoooolllloooowwww!" speech seems to be
making a doomed effort to usurp Bill Shatner's cry of "KKKhhhhaaaannnnn!" to sit atop the throne of over-acting.
Dracula's brides are not much better, and their performances seem to suggest they were cast for looks alone. A scene in
which Dracula throws a hissy fit and shouts at the brides makes one think they've wandered into a big screen 'Am Dram'
performance of the emotion 'angst.' All twisted limbs and timid crouching.
|
