for my moviegoing public -- Van Helsing
Jun. 4th, 2004 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylThis past week ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mooselet came to visit me, and sort of on the spur of the moment we decided to see Van Helsing.
To begin with I didn't have particularly high expectations for this movie. I adore Hugh Jackman, but any fool could tell from the trailers that this wasn't exactly the next Citizen Kane. So from this perspective I can say I wasn't disappointed. It was impossible to avoid drawing comparisons with Kate Beckinsale's other supernatural blockbuster, Underworld, so I didn't even try. This lacked the depth of plot (which was shaky enough in Underworld) but made up for it with better effects, and having Hugh Jackman didn't hurt either. There was plenty of action, and whereas I really despise obvious CGI effects, the film seemed to have made some leaps in CGI reality in several spots where the effect morphed relatively seamlessly into live action.
After seeing Hugh in both X-Men films I am convinced that an action hero can be given some depth of emotion and complexity, but the makers of this movie saw fit to ignore his abilities in favor of catering to an audience of teenage boys (more on this later). His scenes with Anna (Beckinsale) contained none of the sparks seen in almost all his scenes with Jean Grey. I would go so far as to say he had more sparks in his scenes with Charles Xavier than he did with Anna. They tried to give his character some degree of mystery by making him a centuries-old amnesiac with a murky past, but it was never made clear exactly why he lived so long (or if it was, I totally missed it. See my complaint about Dracula below). He was hunky as always, though, and made an especially buff, sexy werewolf (Hugh + loincloth = GUH).
Kate again kicked major ass which I liked. I loved David Wenham as Carl the nervous friar, quite a departure from Faramir in RotK, but it was a pleasure to see him do comedy so well. Richard Roxburgh was handsome as Dracula but I had trouble understanding his exaggerated accent (very unfortunate, then, that most of the plot exposition was accomplished through his lines); all in all I much preferred him as the nefarious Duke in Moulin Rouge.
In summary, this movie is exactly what it appears to be: good summer action fun with acres of scrumpdilicious Hugh, without all those pesky things like plot and character development getting in the way.
My rating: B- (saved from a C+ only by the Hugh)
That being said, I have to rant about the stupidity of trying to see a movie in a public theater yet again. I blame myself. Summer means school is out, which means bored kids going to see movies. And naturally three of the worst of them had to sit right next to me. Three teenage boys, who had clearly seen the movie at least once already (I know because they couldn't resist saying the lines before the actors did), with their feet propped up on the seat backs, giggling and talking during the boring parts (where, unfortunately, what little plot explanation there was occurred), waving their cell phones around like flashlights (I finally snapped when the kid immediately beside me did this repeatedly right into my eyes), getting up not once but twice for snacks, each time gone for 10-15 minutes at a time...how much did they really want to see this movie again? Ahhh, I remember those long summer days when my friends and I had nothing better to do than blow $20 to go to a movie we'd already seen just to see how much we could piss off everyone else. No, wait...when I was a kid I had a lot more manners and respect. I swear the little ones at Shrek were better behaved. I spent the second half of the movie fantasizing about suddenly punching the kid next to me in the nose (the one that never stopped fidgeting and dancing in his seat once during the entire movie), just one quick jab. He wouldn't expect it, and I suspect his reaction would be priceless. I entertained thoughts about complaining about them and getting them kicked out, except I didn't want to miss any of the movie; but I was missing so much anyway it really wouldn't have made a difference. So I guess it was a blessing in disguise that the movie wasn't terribly deep and had lots of loud action scenes to drown out these morons.
I fucking hate kids.
-=Lainey=-
mooselet came to visit me, and sort of on the spur of the moment we decided to see Van Helsing.To begin with I didn't have particularly high expectations for this movie. I adore Hugh Jackman, but any fool could tell from the trailers that this wasn't exactly the next Citizen Kane. So from this perspective I can say I wasn't disappointed. It was impossible to avoid drawing comparisons with Kate Beckinsale's other supernatural blockbuster, Underworld, so I didn't even try. This lacked the depth of plot (which was shaky enough in Underworld) but made up for it with better effects, and having Hugh Jackman didn't hurt either. There was plenty of action, and whereas I really despise obvious CGI effects, the film seemed to have made some leaps in CGI reality in several spots where the effect morphed relatively seamlessly into live action.
After seeing Hugh in both X-Men films I am convinced that an action hero can be given some depth of emotion and complexity, but the makers of this movie saw fit to ignore his abilities in favor of catering to an audience of teenage boys (more on this later). His scenes with Anna (Beckinsale) contained none of the sparks seen in almost all his scenes with Jean Grey. I would go so far as to say he had more sparks in his scenes with Charles Xavier than he did with Anna. They tried to give his character some degree of mystery by making him a centuries-old amnesiac with a murky past, but it was never made clear exactly why he lived so long (or if it was, I totally missed it. See my complaint about Dracula below). He was hunky as always, though, and made an especially buff, sexy werewolf (Hugh + loincloth = GUH).
Kate again kicked major ass which I liked. I loved David Wenham as Carl the nervous friar, quite a departure from Faramir in RotK, but it was a pleasure to see him do comedy so well. Richard Roxburgh was handsome as Dracula but I had trouble understanding his exaggerated accent (very unfortunate, then, that most of the plot exposition was accomplished through his lines); all in all I much preferred him as the nefarious Duke in Moulin Rouge.
In summary, this movie is exactly what it appears to be: good summer action fun with acres of scrumpdilicious Hugh, without all those pesky things like plot and character development getting in the way.
My rating: B- (saved from a C+ only by the Hugh)
That being said, I have to rant about the stupidity of trying to see a movie in a public theater yet again. I blame myself. Summer means school is out, which means bored kids going to see movies. And naturally three of the worst of them had to sit right next to me. Three teenage boys, who had clearly seen the movie at least once already (I know because they couldn't resist saying the lines before the actors did), with their feet propped up on the seat backs, giggling and talking during the boring parts (where, unfortunately, what little plot explanation there was occurred), waving their cell phones around like flashlights (I finally snapped when the kid immediately beside me did this repeatedly right into my eyes), getting up not once but twice for snacks, each time gone for 10-15 minutes at a time...how much did they really want to see this movie again? Ahhh, I remember those long summer days when my friends and I had nothing better to do than blow $20 to go to a movie we'd already seen just to see how much we could piss off everyone else. No, wait...when I was a kid I had a lot more manners and respect. I swear the little ones at Shrek were better behaved. I spent the second half of the movie fantasizing about suddenly punching the kid next to me in the nose (the one that never stopped fidgeting and dancing in his seat once during the entire movie), just one quick jab. He wouldn't expect it, and I suspect his reaction would be priceless. I entertained thoughts about complaining about them and getting them kicked out, except I didn't want to miss any of the movie; but I was missing so much anyway it really wouldn't have made a difference. So I guess it was a blessing in disguise that the movie wasn't terribly deep and had lots of loud action scenes to drown out these morons.
I fucking hate kids.
-=Lainey=-
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 06:03 pm (UTC)I also wanted to say, half the people on my friends list are doing reviews of Harry Potter right now, so I was quite suprised when I realized your entery behind the 'spoilers' cut wasn't going to be about PoA. XD
no subject
Date: 2004-06-05 08:09 am (UTC)-=Lainey=-
Date: 2007-11-02 05:23 pm (UTC)I didn't know where else to put this and I didn't want to double e-mail you, but OMG HAVE YOU SEEN MR. BROOKS YET? Your memories seem to say you have not.
-=Nikki=-
Date: 2007-11-02 05:28 pm (UTC)Re: -=Nikki=-
Date: 2007-11-09 04:20 pm (UTC)Re: -=Lainey=-
Date: 2007-11-09 04:19 pm (UTC)Mr. Brooks? Just read the Netflix summary. You seem pretty excited, but I have to warn you, I have a very low opinion of Kevin Costner as an actor.