[film review] Van Helsing, Flushed Away

[inulro]

Further in the "Things that don't suck" series. Things that do suck include being too ill to read this week; but I've worked on the backlog of films I need to see.

I know I'm in a minority here, but I absolutely lovedVan Helsing. It's a stupid cheesy anachrotech adventure, but one that tunes in exactly to my faux gothic medieval asthetic. I want to live in a village that looks like the one the vampires prey on. Anything with castles that over the top can't go wrong in my book, especially with secret passages and extra dimensions. Dracula is, not surprisingly, better looking than van Helsing. I gigled when the Baby vampires went pop. I wouldn't have thought that an amalgamation of the Frankenstein and Dracula stories could work that well. I know everybody else hated it, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, even though it was let down by some not top of the range CGI.

Flushed Away was a bit more predictable, but none the less enjoyable for that. It's cute and funny, and, as always with Aardman, the animation itself is pure joy.

Inside Man and Arlington Road are both good thrillers. Inside Man is the better made film with the cleverer plot; Arlington Road is Damn Suspenseful.

I have solved the problem of having more time to watch films but no money to rent them when I'm not working. Our DVD rental company periodically gives us the chance to pay for a year up front with a big discount. I have done just that, and upgraded our package so we can have more DVDs at home at once.

Comments

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Dracula is, not surprisingly, better looking than van Helsing

That's the only thing about that film I agree with you on. And I hate Richard Roxborough in pretty much anything else.

Somehow, that film manages to make Hugh Jackman in a loincloth look totally unsexy. By all natural laws this should be impossible. Just goes to illustrate one of the many, many things wrong with it. Stephen Sommers should've been forcibly stopped from making films after The Mummy Returns, which was a heap of shit. After Van Helsing, he should've been committed!

[gashinryu.livejournal.com]

Inside Man and Arlington Road both rock. :-)

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I loved Van Helsing so much that I even went to see the (less good) Kate Beckinsale corset+vampire flick Underworld.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I've seen that. It is less good. I happen to have Underworld: Evolution sitting on the table waiting to be watched. I'm pretty sure that's going to be even less good.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

You need an excuse to see Kate Beckinsale in a corset?

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Van Helsing has my vote just for having proper furry werewolves rather than the half-skinned-looking things that show up in every other horror movie.

Underworld: Evolution is a bit of a weird mishmash and mostly, as far as I can remember, takes place in warehouses. Also, Bill Nighy has an even weirder accent than the one he managed in POTC2.

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

proper furry werewolves

True - and what I really liked is that they were 'furry on the inside', ripping off their skins to reveal the fur beneath, which is very old legend stuff. Kudos to Sommers for digging up that bit of folklore & making use of it.

However, turning human again every time the moon went behind a cloud was just bloody stupid. On a really windy night that could mean a transformation every minute or so! I know this is a supernatural creature & all that, but the sheer waste of effort involved in all those transformations...

[quercus.livejournal.com]

'furry on the inside'
Didn't Angela Carter popularise that some years back?

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

It brings to mind the old Dime bar ads. "Crunchy on the outside, smooth on the inside - armadillos!"