it was entertaining, that's why i watch movies, to be entertained.
So do I, as do most people I would imagine. I doubt many people go to a movie hoping they're flushing a fiver down the bog. Although in the case of "Van Helsing" this option would have been preferable - you still waste a fiver but at least you don't waste over two hours of your life that you can never regain. It's
that bad...
Part of the entertainment experience for me is, preferably, not to have my intelligence insulted by appalingly conceived and executed messes like "Van Helsing", that assume their audience is a mass of drooling retards that will accept any s**te that is served up to them, so long as the decible count is sufficiently high and lots of people / CGI thingies are knocking the crap out of each other every five minutes.
As I said in a previous post on this movie, I patronise films, I don't like it when they patronise me.
Yes, the classic monsters have been re-interpreted over the years and will continue to be. But not only is this the most expensive and lavish re-working of their legends it is by far the worst. The rich heritage and mythos of these characters is plundered in the most dull and unimaginative way possible. Namely your basic "boom-crash-thud", while someone who's taken far too many drugs goes berserk with a digital box of crayons.
The reason that good fantasy and SF stories work is that like any fictional form they have rules and boundaries. The drama / action unfolds within these boundaries. The reason movies like these have held audiences enthralled through the years is the excitement of seeing ordinary humans (us) pitted against and triumphing over the supernatural forces of darkness.
When the human protagonists (a la "Van Helsing") display abilities that would put Spiderman or Wonder Woman to shame then the drama is somewhat dissipated. When every fall from a castle or roof is resolved by an backflip 50 feet through the air, or when a human being is hurled 20ft across a room and hits a wall with an impact that shatters the stonework yet leaves them unscathed, then any drama, suspense, tension or excitement is lost.
The attitude when a character is in danger is, ho-hum, s/he'll do something physically impossible and totally unbelievable to get out of it. You just stop caring. Total non-involvement. That's why when one of the main heroes of the movie was offed, the only reaction engendered was "Oh good, that means it must be near the end!".
Indeed one of the best assessments I saw of this aspect of the movie was in a US review. The critic said that next time he goes to see a movie like this he will take along a gamepad or joystick controller and flick the buttons throughout the movie so that he can feel at least some sense of involvement with what is happening on-screen.
Add to this a total lack of characterization and a "plot" that exists purely to string together a series of overbaked CGI action sequences, and one is left with the dull and uninvolving experience that is "Van Helsing". Some people fail to grasp that it is indeed possible for endless wall to wall action to be deadly dull - it's all a matter of execution. They seem to be under the impression that because things are constantly whizzing around the screen and every speaker in the auditorium is strained to its limit that they
must be witnessing "excitement".
It's as if Sommers didn't have the imagination to use the rich fantasy mileu at his disposal and simply resorted to endless CGI bunfights. I would go as far as to say that on the evidence of this outing he was more concerned about CGI than logic, character and plot.
"Summer blockbuster", "popcorn movie", "no-brainer" - even within the realm of the aforementioned oft-trotted-out excuses for what is often nothing less than bad film-making, "Van Helsing" plumbs new depths of awfulness.
No, great as it is we don't want to watch "The Godfather" every day, but there are decades of great movies from many countries to be explored, more than most people will ever manage to view in a lifetime, so Gorshin is right when he says there's no excuse for wasting time on drivel like "Van Helsing".
And that IMDB rating is appalingly high for this tosh - but then have a look at the "Van Helsing" threads and see the types who are voting for it! It too joins the ranks of the "Farhenheit 9/11" and "Passion of the Christ" IMDB threads in the "...be afraid...be very afraid..." category...
So to answer Army Bloke's original question:
Oh f*** yes!!!