Van Helsing

Day 289 - 10/16/09 - Movie #289

BEFORE: As I said before, I used to watch old Abbott + Costello movies when I was a kid - one of the local Boston UHF stations ran them on Sunday mornings, and one of my favorites was "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein", which starred Frankenstein's Monster, Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman. It was like a great jam session with all the movie monsters in one film. They used to do that with the Godzilla movies too - the best ones would have Godzilla battling Rodan, Mothra and Megalon, all in the same film! I used to watch those on the UHF stations too, Saturday afternoons were time for "Creature Feature" movies. If this film captures some of that old spirit, then I'm very excited...

THE PLOT: The notorious monster hunter is sent to Transylvania to stop Count Dracula who is using Dr. Frankenstein's research and a werewolf for some sinister purpose.

AFTER: You know, I rather enjoyed this one - it was totally action-packed and the special effects were top-notch. I've never seen such great transitions into werewolves and vampire bats before.

Huch Jackman as Van Helsing came off like a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Wolverine - all of which was fine by me. Kate Beckinsale, who was also in "Underworld", seems to have built a whole career out of battling werewolves. Count Dracula, of course, is the one with the evil plan here, using both the lycanthropes and Frankenstein's Monster as his pawns. Van Helsing has all sorts of devices and innovative methods to battle the undead, thanks to a monk named Carl who acts like his "Q".

Even though "Dracula" is set in Romania and "Frankenstein" in Germany, I'm willing to overlook a little cross-cultural monster overlap if the story is clever, and I found that it was. Is it outlandish, unrealistic, even cartoonish? Well, yeah, but it's entertaining, and here that trumps everything else... There's a lot of rope-swinging that always seems to take the characters exactly where they need to go - and a lot of other things from the Road Runner vs. Coyote school of physics, but what are ya gonna do? It all added up to a thrill ride of sorts.

More than any other film so far, this one put me in a festive Halloween mood, and I'm feeling generous...

RATING: 9 out of 10 crossbow bolts

SPOOK-O-METER: 4 out of 10 (light on the gore, but heavy on the scary monsters)