Hugh Jackman has been a fan favorite for decades for his portrayal of Wolverine in over 25 years of X-Men movies and counting. Yet had has proven himself to be more than just a ripped comic book mutant with movies like The Greatest Showman, Les Miserables, and The Prestige among others. However, not every movie can come with an Oscar-worthy performance and sometimes there is a need to play into something a little more pulpy and really chew through the scenery. One such movie of Jackman’s career saw him donning a dirty hat and coat to go hunting versions of some of the world’s most famous monsters, all rendered in glorious CGI, and with the subtle nuances of a NASA rocket being driven into a car parking space. 22 years after its theatrical panning, Van Helsing has been resurrected on Prime Video for Halloween and has immediately jumped into the global streaming Top 10.
Spooky season has a habit of dredging up movies and TV shows that have been mostly forgotten in the constant churn of new releases – some fairly, some undeservedly. Since the beginning of the month this has seen decades old titles like Coraline, Penny Dreadful, and The Shining sure into the charts on various platforms, and Van Helsing has received similar boost from the season. The 2004 action adventure saw Jackman lead a cast of Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Will Kemp, Kevin J. O’Connor, and Shuler Hensley through two hours of monster mash madness as his hunter battles classic horror icons like Mr Hyde, Dracula, and The Wolfman. Even without going into any further detail about the plot, the premise itself sets up a throwaway piece of blockbuster spectacle from the days before Marvel Studios cornered the market.
When it comes to big fantasy blockbusters, there are those that come with a deep epic story and others that provide easy to follow visual spectacle. Van Helsing is one of the most “on-the-rails” theme park ride style movies released this century, full of huge CGI set-pieces, corny dialogue and generally just putting fun over logic and coherence. The plot sees Jackman playing Gabriel Van Helsing, who is assigned a mission to protect Anna Valerious (Beckinsale, fresh off her Underworld success) whose bloodline swore an oath to kill Count Dracula (Roxburgh) in order to get their souls into heaven. However, the pair discover that Dracula has enlisted other monsters in order to help him raise an undead army that must be stopped at all costs. As you would expect, the movie spends its first two acts setting up a barnstorming final third of explosions and action sequences as it speeds towards the mostly predictable ending. If you don’t mind spoilers, you can check out the final battle between Van Helsing and Dracula below in Universal Pictures’ clip.
Van Helsing‘s visual effects did not come cheap, and it logged one of the highest budgets of the noughties at around $170 million. The movie ended its box office run on a $300 million haul, which did not make it a flop, but once Universal’s marketing costs were accounted for it was not the profitable blockbuster that the studio had been hoping for. While the film has a cult following now, it had a very mixed reception from audiences at the time with just 57% giving the movie a positive review on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics, as you might expect, found the whole thing a dismal “CGI overload” that cared too much about its frantic action to bother looking at the story, character development and dialogue. Yet, the over-the-top theatrical performance of Roxburgh combined with Jackman’s roguish charm and Beckinsale’s kick-ass heroine are enough to give anyone a good excuse to waste a couple of hours in their company.
Does Van Helsing deliver a guilty pleasure monster mash, or is it the CGI overload critics called it? Let us know in the comments.
