Saturday, May 08, 2004
Quick, Van Helsing! To the Pope Cave!
I have seen the spectacle of graphics and sound that is Van Helsing. Oh, and did I also mention it was a spectacle of suck?
This is about to descend into a highly spoilery and snarky and very long recounting of the film, so if you don't want to have this marvellous cinematic experience ruined for you, do not read any further. If you want to be amused at how horrible the film was, by all means read on.
Van Helsing should probably have been titled Vampires Don't Wear Hairclips or Dressed to Kill: Hunting the Undead in Style, or Mommy, Where Do Vampire Bat Babies Come From? or Is Werewolf an STD?
It opens with a black-and-white sequence, set in Transylvania in 1887. It was a dark and stormy night... Up in his castle, Victor Frankenstein brings his creature to life. Then Dracula comes out of nowhere, insists that the monster be given to him for nefarious purposes (cue evil laughter). Igor, who looks like an orc and shall henceforth be referred to as Igorc, switches sides and turns against his master. Some fighting ensues. The monster tries to protect his "father" and flees with the unconscious or dead Victor to an abandoned windmill. Meanwhile the outraged townspeople burn the windmill down, and the doctor and his creature die in the unfortunate blaze.
Or so we think.
Flashforward a year later to Paris, where we meet our hero, Van Helsing, a man with a tragic quest and a mysterious past, hunting down Mr. Hyde, a creature who resembles Andre the Giant, only evil. After killing him, VH immediately goes to the Vatican, so he can beg forgiveness and receive penance from the Pope himself -- as all Demon Hunters are wont to do. The Cardinal in the confessional traps Van Helsing there by dropping a portcullis out of the ceiling, and leads him down to the Pope Cave -- a secret lair beneath St. Peter's Basilica, where the Pope's Secret Society operates. Men from all religions, under the guidance of the Catholics, are working to vanquish evil for the common good of mankind by developing a number of cool-looking Anti-Evil Weapons. See, Catholicism really is a kick-ass religion. Literally.
Anyway, the Cardinal tells Van Helsing some story about how he came to be the World's Greatest Evil-Killer and gives him a new assignment via a slideshow on the walls of the Pope Cave. VH has been dispatched by the PSS to Transylvania to aid the last surviving members of a family in their quest to Dracula. He's given a torn piece of scroll and a bunch of fun weapons; he also chooses a Geeky Friar as his perfect sidekick. GF is an inventor and is part of the team that creates all these brilliant weapons down in the Pope Cave. He's spent twelve years making a solution that creates a blast that has the exact brightness and flash of sunlight, but he doesn't know what it's going to be used for. Um, gee, let's think about that one. Right. For future reference, when you are going off to HUNT VAMPIRES, you make sure you have a buttload of Sun Bombs. But no, they opt to stick with crossbows and silver stakes. Typical.
Cut to Transylvania. Anna and Valken Valerious are attempting to capture and kill the Wolfman, who is one of Dracula's minions. Their plot, involving faulty pulleys and unsturdy cages, ends with Valken and the Wolfman tumbling to their doom over a cliff's edge. Poor Anna -- who throughout the movie looks resplendent in her stilletto boots, skin-tight pants, leather corset, and bad accent -- is left alone to fight the evil presences in her home country. Unless some mysterious and exceedingly hot stranger arrives to help her.
And so he does! VH and GF arrive with a warm welcome from the locals -- that is, they all pull scythes and pitchforks on them, since, being small-town Transylvanians, they don't trust strangers. The mistrusting townsfolk are led by our lovely heroine. Sparks of sexual tension fly immediately upon their meeting, but they are distracted momentarily by a bunch of vampires materializing out of the sky and swooping upon them. VH shoots an astounding number of crossbow bolts at them. He has terrible aim yet somehow manages not to kill or maim Anna or the zillion townspeople who are running mindlessly in fear. Two of the vampires -- we discover they are the Brides of Dracula -- capture Anna and are about to suck her blood when Van Helsing dips his crossbow in holy water and finally achieves a true aim into the heart of the third Vampirella, at which point the other two scream and fly away. Anna grudgingly thanks VH and brings him back to her castle for a nightcap. The remaining Vampirellas return to their Dark Lord, where they walk up walls and hang upside down from the ceiling, then disappear into their icy loveshack and presumably have very hot vampire sex.
Did I mention that Dracula looks like a cross between Elrond and Mr. Bean, and has a very unfortunate hair clip that undermines the Evil Look he's going for? Yeah. Because, you know, when you're the King of the Undead, you can get lots of hot vampire sex no matter what you look like.
Meanwhile, at the castle Anna reveals a few Important Plot Details and tells VH that she's going after the Vampirellas that night, alone. So VH does the chivalrous thing and sprays her in the face with tranquilizing mace. She wakes later to find the Wolfman prowling around her castle, and discovers to her horror that this Wolfman is her brother. VH arrives in the nick of time again; the Wolfman escapes and they chase him to Frankenstein's castle. No one lives here, our heroine says, so of course no one has bothered to check this place out for signs of evildoers and monsters and the like. They find a massive stash of Vampire Bat Baby Eggs -- evidently when one is undead, there's not a lot to do except have lots of vampire sex -- but, the catch is, since the vampires are technically not alive, their offspring are lifeless as well. So in order to bring his bazillion kids to life, Dracula has hatched (no pun intended) an evil plan: hook the Wolfman up to Frankenstein's machine and use him to send bolts of life-giving electricity through all the Baby Vamps. So simple, so brilliant, and it makes so much sense! It's a miracle we haven't thought of this before!
So he does. With the help of Igorc and a number of minions who look like a cross between Oompa Loompas, stormtroopers, and Ewoks (we'll call them Oompatroopwoks), he taunts poor Wolfman-brother by tangoing with himself and electrocutes his Vampire Spawn. A multitude of Vampire Bat Babies erupt from their gooey eggs and head off to the village to feed on the multitude of townsfolk who apparently like to take long midnight strolls. But Wolfman Electricity isn't good enough to sustain Vampire Bat Babies for a long time, so they explode in midair. Amid the chaos, Geeky Friar has saved the life of a pretty young woman and takes her back to the Valerious castle for thank-you sex -- he can do this, you see, beaus he's just a friar, not a monk. When he wakes up in the morning, he stumbles on a picture in the castle that depicts a Wolfman and Dracula taking each other out. He ponders this for a long while and wonders whatever could it mean. The audience smacks their foreheads in disgust.
Meanwhile, at Frankenstein's castle, Dracula battles VH. He keeps referring to GH as Gabriel, and hints that he knows something about VH's mysterious and unknown past; all the theatre-goers have deja vu and try to remember where they've seen Hugh Jackman battling his inner demons and amnesia as he is taunted by an evil overlord who knows about the dark secrets of his life. Then the Wolfman shows up again and VH escapes with Anna across a reeeeeaaally wide ravine via his magical grappling hook. The Wolfman falls into the water, but crawls up the entire ravine and the castle walls in less than five minutes, to receive orders from Dracula to track Anna and VH down.
Anna and VH bust out some absinthe by a very romantic set of ruins that may or may not strongly resemble a burned-down windmill, but just as the mood is right and you expect them to fall to the ground and make out in the mud, the ground collapses and they fall into a sewer system instead. Down there they find Frankenstein's monster, who has been hiding this whole time and reveals he is the Secret to Dracula's Success. If the Vampire Bat Babies are brought to life with Frankie's electricity, they'll be able to sustain life. But Dracula already tried to bring his Bat Babies to life, says Van Helsing. Frankie reveals that the eggs in the castle were only from one of the Vampirella's -- he has a whole 'nother stash of Bat Babies, because Dracula has been a very busy dude.
Our brave heroes decide that they need to take Frankenstein back to the Pope Cave, where he will be safe from Dracula and minions, but the Wolfman sees them and in their flight they are attacked near Budapest. Van Helsing has cleverly devised a not at all cliched trick involving two stagecoaches -- he's driving the fake one which is of course attacked by the Vampirellas. He jumps another ravine with the six horses, but the stagecoach itself misses the cliff's edge and falls to the ground below, where it explodes in a firey blast of silver stakes which conveniently pierce the heart of one of the Vampirella's.
He makes it to the other stagecoach, the real one, but unfortunately the Wolfman attacks and the last Vampirella captures Anna and hauls her off. He defeats the Wolfman, but it's just his sorry luck that he's been bitten, and in two nights it will be the full moon again. This is especially unfortunate, as it is unknown whether Werewolf is an STD and can be spread to Anna if they ever get the chance to turn all that UST into RST. They arrive in Budapest and Vampirella returns to strike a bargain: trade Frankie for Anna, to be accomplished at the Halloween Masquerade Ball in Budapest. Van Helsing takes the trade, tranquilises Frankenstein for no reason, and hides him in a crypt with the help of the Geeky Friar.
At the masquerade, VH and GF do some impressive and unnecessary acrobatics in order to sweep Anna out of the grasp of Dracula, whereupon we discover that the entire guest list is a bunch of Vamps. VH, GF, and Anna flee the par-tay, and GF FINALLY discovers what he should use his Sun Bomb for. It explodes in a flash that destroys all the vampires except for Dracula and Vampirella. Meanwhile, Igorc and the Oompatroopwoks have captured Frankie; Dracula, Vampirella, and their minions all jump a ship and sail back to their Sekrit Hideout, after dropping yet another convenient portcullis to keep Anna, VH and GF from swimming after them.
Somehow they teleport back to Transylvania, and GF reveals all this extra information he suddenly knows about Dracula, and how he was killed by the Left Hand of God (they might as well have called him Left Handsing; it would have been less obvious), made a pact with the Devil, blah blah blah, the usual spiel. He also wonders about that ever-mysterious painting he found after waking up with the local wench and it takes all of their combined brain power to figure out that the picture is a clue how to kill Dracula (DUH) and that other clues must exist in the castle that may lead to Dracula's Sekrit Hideout. They take the piece of scroll that VH had got back in the Pope Cave and put it in its place on a wall map, which becomes a two-way mirror/pathway to Dracula's Icy Lair O' Doom.
Van Helsing sends Anna and GF off to find Dracula's Patented Werewolf Antidote, which he has just in case a Wolfman turns against him and tries to, like, rip his throat out. He meanwhile impressively climbs walls and chains to release Frankenstein -- but he's too late, and the bolts of electricity have brought the swarm of Bat Babies to life. This electricity also seems to go haywire and explode all over the castle, setting the unfortunate Oompatroopwoks on fire. Poor little guys. Dracula takes on VH and Frankenstein escapes in order to swing to the rescue of Anna and GF.
Meanwhile, Anna and GF enlist Igorc to lead them to the Anti-Wolfman serum, which is contained in a big bubble of acid. Igorc betrays them and drops yet another portcullis, trapping them in the serum room, and Vampirella attacks. Anna uses the acid to blind Vampirella and burn through the portcullis, and sends the Geeky Friar off with the antidote as she battles Vampirella. Frankenstein comes to her aid, they swing across a ravine and rescue GF, then meet up with Vampirella again. Anna stakes her through the heart, and they flee to the tower to deliver the antidote to Left Handsing.
Van Helsing is in the middle of a violent battle with Dracula; he's fully morphed into a very beefy Wolfman now and he defeats Dracula by gnawing his throat out. He leaps on Anna in his werewolfy rage, and GF goes forward to stake him, but with her dying breath Anna stabbed him with the serum and he slowly returns to human form, howling in sorrow as he clutches Anna's dead body to him in a vaguely obscene sort of way. Alas, they never got to have hot sex like Dracula and the Vampirellas did.
Frankenstein is allowed to go and be free, and he sails away on a tiny wooden raft of the sort that cartoon characters build to escape deserted islands. Meanwhile GF and VH burn Anna's still-flawless body on a funeral pyre, and as her spirit visibly ascends into the sky, her face appears in the clouds (think The Lion King) and she smiles down upon Van Helsing in warm thanks for delivering her soul and the souls of her ancestors to heavenly rest. Then VH and GF walk off into the sunset, past a bunch of ruins that look suspiciously like Stonehenge.
The End.
The only thing that could have made this movie better would be if Frankenstein offered to let himself be used to electrocute the life back into Anna, and then she dumps Van Helsing and becomes the Bride of Frankenstein, which would cause Van Helsing to give up on women and shack up with the Geeky Friar. Now that would have been an ending!
| 12:48 AM |
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