Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1586 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-11
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English, Latin
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 126 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Like a roller coaster ready to fly off its rails, Van Helsing rockets to maximum velocity and never slows down. Having earned blockbuster clout with The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, writer-director Stephen Sommers once again plunders Universal's monster vault and pulls out all the stops for this mammoth $148-million action-adventure-horror-comedy, which opens (sans credits) with a terrific black-and-white prologue that pays homage to the Universal horror classics that inspired it. The plot pits legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) against Dracula (the deliciously campy Richard Roxburgh), his deadly blood-sucking brides, and the Wolfman (Will Kemp) in a two-hour parade of outstanding special effects (980 in all) that turn Sommers' juvenile plot into a triple-overtime bonus for CGI animators. In alliance with a Transylvanian princess (Kate Beckinsale) and the Frankenstein monster (Shuler Hensley), Van Helsing must prevent Dracula from hatching his bat-winged progeny, and there's so much good-humored action that you're guaranteed to be thrilled and exhausted by the time the 10-minute end-credits roll. It's loud, obnoxious, filled with revisionist horror folklore, and aimed at addicted gamers and eight-year-olds, but this colossal monster mash (including Mr. Hyde, just for kicks) will never, ever bore you. A sequel is virtually guaranteed. --Jeff Shannon

Synopsis
All varieties of otherworldly creatures come out to play in Stephen Sommers' gothic carnival. Frankenstein's monster, ferocious werewolves, vampire bat babies, a maniacal scientist named Igor, and a CGI Dr. Jekyll are just a few. When they come together, a thrilling fantasy adventure results, making VAN HELSING a visual feast. Destined to fight the world's evil, Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is a warrior in a cowboy hat and a trench coat, heavily armed with a rapid-fire multi-arrow crossbow, among other gadgetry. A legion of monks in Rome send Van Helsing to Transylvania to hunt the immortal Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh), who terrorizes the local people with the help of his three vampire brides. Especially threatened is the vixen Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), whose family also strives to kill the Count. Van Helsing and Anna Valerious work together, searching for the secret door to Dracula's lair. But it is only after massive battles involving impossible stunts, races on horse-pulled carriages, and the desecration of enchanting medieval castles (all done with dizzying computer graphics) that they succeed. Not only does the eye candy keep on coming, the tongue-in-cheek writing and deep Transylvanian accents perfect the film with a dose of dark humour.

Customer Reviews

doh
complete rubbish that is not worth bothering with.theres no gore,no scares
the werewolves,vampires and frankensteins monster all look cheap and shoddy,the acting is awful, the script is worse

Crash! Bang! Wallop! But not much else.
This is a film that tries to do many things, but only really manages to be incredibly noisy. There are nods to other movies (including James Bond and M) and an attempt to marry horror with wit (not easy, but watch Buffy the equally famous Vampire Slayer to see how it's done).

Hugh Jackman plays in fairly straight in the title role, Richard Roxburgh hams it up as Dracula and Kate Beckinsale struts her stuff in ridiculous heels, a wasp waisted corset and a blouse that tries to make her look bare breasted.

Unfortunately the thin storyline (haunted vampire hunter Jackman wants to kill Dracula. So does Kate) is not helped by the thin script, and being battered by CGI effects and the sound track ended up making me feel slightly mind boggled and just plain disappointed.

If you want to turn off your brain and simply admire the clever technology, give it a go. If you want substance, character and something to get your teeth into....give it a miss.

SHALLOW FOR SURE BUT AMUSING
When you want to make one more film on Dracula who counts several hundred films already, both as assets and as drawbacks, you have to be original. No problem ! Let's patchwork together dozens of allusions to other films and create the first ever vampiristic salad. So Dr Frankenstein and his creature will be there. The use of the lightning to get electricity like in Back to the Future 1. The use of strange weapons halfway between Back to the Future 3 and The Lord of the Rings. The costume, dress, apparel of Van Helsing looks like Clint Eastwood's in a spaghetti western, and at times like the main hero's in the Matrix trilogy. The cows in the village are similar to those in Salem's Lot 2. Even the dance scene with the vampire reflected in a half empty mirror is borrowed from Dance of the Vampires. I would need a volume to quote them all. So what's left after all that composing of tidbits? A superhero Van Helsing who kills Dracula's three fiancées, the thousands of baby vampires that look like upside down Aliens in their suspended pods, and Dracula himself. And all that on the order from the Vatican, the Pope and the good old godly Catholic church. That's a counter-allusion to the Da Vinci Code. The film then is more dictated in its plot by the brand new topnotch state of the art digitalized image processing of the modern world than the reverse. So the plot is a vast ballet between mountains and from abysses to cosmic skies. It is thus an amusing entertainment as shallow as the Thames River twenty kilometers before its spring. Or is it the Mississippi river?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines