Xcalibur
05-14-2004, 01:19 PM
Don't read, full of spoilers...
Got this from IMDb, from a poster called arseface666, funny as hell and somewhat true
I still liked the movie, but yeah.. man, it was so full of ... bugs and weird.
Here are some reasons I hated this debauchery:
Bad special effects-- I'll be honest. I'm partially biased against any movie that is soley based on CGI. Which isn't to say I hate special effects -- I love them! I love them because they used to require effort. In Jackie Chan's Legend of Drunken Master, IMDb trivia states (and I remember Jackie saying something similar) that each day of filming the final fight scene would produce about 3 seconds of useable footage. Now that's effort! Telling Wolvering "Hey, look here! Pretend that's vampire! OooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooo!"
The other side of this argument is GOOD CGI, used sparingly. Case in point, Gollum. I know he's fake, I've seen the "Making of ..." crap and I still have to remind myself that it's not a real creature. Then we have George Lucas who films everything behind a blue- or green-screen. This is partly why the latest Star Wars movies have been reproved by fans. The special effect looked better when they were kit-bashed!
Plot? What? Where?--
Again, I'm not talking about layered depth, but I like some sense of effort on the part of the writing crew. We spend a half-hour with Van Hugh-sing, setting up the "story" -- in that he's a bounty hunter. People don't like him because they always catch him in a "Three's Company" situation. He doesn't know who he is, which is supposed to give his character motivation.
Now we go to Transylvania. We meet Kate "Midget in Her Costume Holding That Rack Up!" Beckinsale. She wants to kill Dracu-bleh doubly because she and her brother are dumbasses and he got himself turning into a wolfman and because it's her destiny.
Dracula has no heart. Why? 'cause. Only a werewolf can kill him. Why? 'cause. He's trying to ressurect dead babies that can be conceived and gestate heathly but die for some unknown reason. Why? 'cause. It's not like he had a symbiotic relaionship with the village that was working out okay. It's not like he cared about the children -- remember his whiny Goth speech about not feeling?
Okay, so blah blah blah, stuff happens. There's stylized action. I'm okay with that, though the undertaker's hat flying off was so stupid I retched on the floor of the theatre.
We then learn that Van Hugh-sing originally tried (and botched) killing Dracula. He's the Left Hand of God (why the Left-Hand? Isn't God supposed to be all-powerful? Wouldn't both his hand be equally good?). What does this mean? We don't know. Apparently it doesn't mean he's immune to lycanthropy. Is he immortal? He was around 400 years before this "movie". Does God just pinch him back to Earth when he's needed? Sommers cleverly distracts us from this with: cleavage and a werewolf. Wow. Good job, shtface.
This isn't "turning off your brain." This is "Hi, my name is Van Helsing and I'll be your SFX tour guide this evening."
Horrid Acting--
Okay, Hugh Jackman is a good actor from what I've seen in the X-Men movies. All he does here is look brooding and slightly menacing. Not exactly his fault, it's not as if the movie has any real emotional moments in it.
Kate Beckinsale shows off her "assets" with a wardrobe completely accurate for the Victorian era, what with the low cut top revealing her perky breasts and the painted-on slacks framing her butt nicely. All she does is botch an accent and look bemused.
The monk (No, friar! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA) was okay, for comic relief. Frankenstein's monster was the Elephant Man if he were born of Emo music.
The biggest problems we have are Dracula and his brides. Vlady is short (though maybe only compare to Hugh) whiny, and speaks like a drunken Russian (yes, he's supposed to be Romanian, so what? He's also half a century old, have fun with it asswipe), dressed kind of like Adam Ant if he became a Goth. He's not cool at all, not intimidating. You know, had he captured Van Hugh-sing and made him grasp a rope suspended over a spiked pole and let him live as long as he could hold on, hey, I'd buy the movie just for being somewhat historically accurate. But no, his final vampire form looks like a cross between a manta-ray and a lizard which results in stupid. Try the anime Hellsing for a completely badass Dracula (Alucard, actually. Spell it backwards, I know, you'll have to use your brain).
His brides, while being comely in their human form, need to be resoundly slapped. "Too bahd, so sahd..." SHUT UP! SHUUUUUUUUT UP! Generic pining, sex-slaves, nothing new here, except that every word that say is like a nail in my head.
Steampunk ---
In case you don't know, steampunk is, basically, a medevial world with steam or electrical machinery. It's become a cliched concept as of late, but that's not why I'm condeming this film for using it.
First, it's just there. No one seems the slightest bit piqued at the wires strung from the towers of Dracu-bleh's ice-palace-of-dumb, the whirring machine, the Jawa-thing. Nope, just there. And Dracula knows how to work everything perfectly. No mishaps, nothing. I half-expected Carl the Monk-friar-jester to pull out a Coleman electric lantern or get in a car ("It is the future my friend. I call it ... an auto-mobile.").
Not only do they steampunk, they make it look dumb. Frankenstein's munster has those litte lightning-globe balls in his head in chest. It's stupid looking. It looks like Franky was assimilated by the Borg rather than reanimated flesh ("BUT HIS HEAD SPLIT APART! LOL!). The pneumatic looking leg also looked just dumb.
Guess I'm just being cynical. There was action, but it was BORING. Seeing two CGI creatures fight for little good reason is boring. Sod off. You like mindless drival I like a story.
[Edited on 14-5-04 by Xcalibur]
Got this from IMDb, from a poster called arseface666, funny as hell and somewhat true
I still liked the movie, but yeah.. man, it was so full of ... bugs and weird.
Here are some reasons I hated this debauchery:
Bad special effects-- I'll be honest. I'm partially biased against any movie that is soley based on CGI. Which isn't to say I hate special effects -- I love them! I love them because they used to require effort. In Jackie Chan's Legend of Drunken Master, IMDb trivia states (and I remember Jackie saying something similar) that each day of filming the final fight scene would produce about 3 seconds of useable footage. Now that's effort! Telling Wolvering "Hey, look here! Pretend that's vampire! OooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooo!"
The other side of this argument is GOOD CGI, used sparingly. Case in point, Gollum. I know he's fake, I've seen the "Making of ..." crap and I still have to remind myself that it's not a real creature. Then we have George Lucas who films everything behind a blue- or green-screen. This is partly why the latest Star Wars movies have been reproved by fans. The special effect looked better when they were kit-bashed!
Plot? What? Where?--
Again, I'm not talking about layered depth, but I like some sense of effort on the part of the writing crew. We spend a half-hour with Van Hugh-sing, setting up the "story" -- in that he's a bounty hunter. People don't like him because they always catch him in a "Three's Company" situation. He doesn't know who he is, which is supposed to give his character motivation.
Now we go to Transylvania. We meet Kate "Midget in Her Costume Holding That Rack Up!" Beckinsale. She wants to kill Dracu-bleh doubly because she and her brother are dumbasses and he got himself turning into a wolfman and because it's her destiny.
Dracula has no heart. Why? 'cause. Only a werewolf can kill him. Why? 'cause. He's trying to ressurect dead babies that can be conceived and gestate heathly but die for some unknown reason. Why? 'cause. It's not like he had a symbiotic relaionship with the village that was working out okay. It's not like he cared about the children -- remember his whiny Goth speech about not feeling?
Okay, so blah blah blah, stuff happens. There's stylized action. I'm okay with that, though the undertaker's hat flying off was so stupid I retched on the floor of the theatre.
We then learn that Van Hugh-sing originally tried (and botched) killing Dracula. He's the Left Hand of God (why the Left-Hand? Isn't God supposed to be all-powerful? Wouldn't both his hand be equally good?). What does this mean? We don't know. Apparently it doesn't mean he's immune to lycanthropy. Is he immortal? He was around 400 years before this "movie". Does God just pinch him back to Earth when he's needed? Sommers cleverly distracts us from this with: cleavage and a werewolf. Wow. Good job, shtface.
This isn't "turning off your brain." This is "Hi, my name is Van Helsing and I'll be your SFX tour guide this evening."
Horrid Acting--
Okay, Hugh Jackman is a good actor from what I've seen in the X-Men movies. All he does here is look brooding and slightly menacing. Not exactly his fault, it's not as if the movie has any real emotional moments in it.
Kate Beckinsale shows off her "assets" with a wardrobe completely accurate for the Victorian era, what with the low cut top revealing her perky breasts and the painted-on slacks framing her butt nicely. All she does is botch an accent and look bemused.
The monk (No, friar! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA) was okay, for comic relief. Frankenstein's monster was the Elephant Man if he were born of Emo music.
The biggest problems we have are Dracula and his brides. Vlady is short (though maybe only compare to Hugh) whiny, and speaks like a drunken Russian (yes, he's supposed to be Romanian, so what? He's also half a century old, have fun with it asswipe), dressed kind of like Adam Ant if he became a Goth. He's not cool at all, not intimidating. You know, had he captured Van Hugh-sing and made him grasp a rope suspended over a spiked pole and let him live as long as he could hold on, hey, I'd buy the movie just for being somewhat historically accurate. But no, his final vampire form looks like a cross between a manta-ray and a lizard which results in stupid. Try the anime Hellsing for a completely badass Dracula (Alucard, actually. Spell it backwards, I know, you'll have to use your brain).
His brides, while being comely in their human form, need to be resoundly slapped. "Too bahd, so sahd..." SHUT UP! SHUUUUUUUUT UP! Generic pining, sex-slaves, nothing new here, except that every word that say is like a nail in my head.
Steampunk ---
In case you don't know, steampunk is, basically, a medevial world with steam or electrical machinery. It's become a cliched concept as of late, but that's not why I'm condeming this film for using it.
First, it's just there. No one seems the slightest bit piqued at the wires strung from the towers of Dracu-bleh's ice-palace-of-dumb, the whirring machine, the Jawa-thing. Nope, just there. And Dracula knows how to work everything perfectly. No mishaps, nothing. I half-expected Carl the Monk-friar-jester to pull out a Coleman electric lantern or get in a car ("It is the future my friend. I call it ... an auto-mobile.").
Not only do they steampunk, they make it look dumb. Frankenstein's munster has those litte lightning-globe balls in his head in chest. It's stupid looking. It looks like Franky was assimilated by the Borg rather than reanimated flesh ("BUT HIS HEAD SPLIT APART! LOL!). The pneumatic looking leg also looked just dumb.
Guess I'm just being cynical. There was action, but it was BORING. Seeing two CGI creatures fight for little good reason is boring. Sod off. You like mindless drival I like a story.
[Edited on 14-5-04 by Xcalibur]