Van Hellsing? Seen it? Enlighten Us then!

...i really didn't like this one..[i'm usually in luv with others vampire movies tho..lol..]...it wasn't good now bad..just in between..^^'

Perhaps I'm in the minority here because I'm an old fart at 45, but the original Dracula with Bela Lugosi as the Count is still the best vampire movie ever. In my mind, nothing else comes close. Another fave is an off the wall choice: The Lost Boys. Punk bloodsuckers (led by 24's Keifer Sutherland) and teenage vampire hunters set in the big hair days of the mid-80's. It was cool!

MHtrStevie said:

I don't think anyone was saying it was a bomb... they're saying it isn't very good. Plenty of movies I personally thought were terrible made HUGE amounts of money...

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Indeed. Just look at the music industry to see crap making money. Popular doesn't necessarily equal good.

MHtrStevie said:

I'm very curious to see how VH fares in its second week. If the talk here is a true indication of "word of mouth" travelling around the country, I'd imagine the numbers would be down significantly...

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I'm interested too. I couldn't imagine it making much more money, but then again...

MHtrStevie said:

I was originally planning to see VH, but after seeing the director interviewed for something called "The Twenty", shown in Regal Theatres in my area prior to the movie previews and feature itself, alarm bells went off as he talked about how he just borrowed blocking for scenes from the classic monster movies... and then there was the scene with Helsing getting gadgets in the previews which looked completely ripped off from every Bond movie ever made (Helsing sees the Gatling Gun in action and quipps, "How do I get one of those?").

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Yeah, that was a pretty blatant ripoff. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when that scene came up.

MHtrStevie said:

Sadly, with ticket prices at the levels they are, I can't be satisfied with a movie being a "light romp" or "great fun, even though it has weaknesses"... for close to $10 a pop, these movie companies have to hit a towering home run to keep me from leaving the cineplex disappointed.

Quite a shame, really...

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No kidding. Who wants to pay that kind of money to people who are infinitely richer than we are to see some crap that insults one's intelligence? What's worse is having to pay to see the god awful commercials and previews before the movie! I fluctuated between laughing hysterically and wanting to throw up during all of the pre-movie BS. I was lucky to have gotten to the theater late when I saw "Kill Bill 2," thus missing all but the last part of the last preview. Anyway, the whole experience of seeing "Van Helsing" made me want to quit going to the movies entirely. :banghead:

flashjeff said:

Perhaps I'm in the minority here because I'm an old fart at 45, but the original Dracula with Bela Lugosi as the Count is still the best vampire movie ever.

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Count me in on the minority. I've been wanting to see this movie since I was maybe 12 years old. Unfortunately, I don't think I can find it in my area.. I would also like to see the original Nosferatu...

I was disappointed with Van Helsing personally. To much action, to little plot...blah blah. There was this great little deal about Helsing being The Arch Angel Gabriel (ie: left hand of God) but they barely went into that and most of us who watched the movie were left out in the cold if we hadn't done our research. It was kinda' boring to say the least....just another product of hollywood.

The movie was OK (ish). but I wouldn't give it more than say 5 or 6 out of 10. Has anyone seen the prequel cartoon Van Helsing The London Assignment, much better than the film and only 33 minutes long.

I've never seen it, but i've wanted to...I have heard that it's good.
Btw, nice avatar Spoon.

It's curious to note that despite the almost uniformally bad reviews the movie got, "Van Helsing" scored 54 million at the box office when it opened last weekend. On the other hand, "Troy" which was hyped out the wazoo, and starred buffed up pretty boy Brad Pitt made only (said with tongue planted in cheek) around 46 mil in its first weekend. Go figure!

flashjeff said:

It's curious to note that despite the almost uniformally bad reviews the movie got, "Van Helsing" scored 54 million at the box office when it opened last weekend. On the other hand, "Troy" which was hyped out the wazoo, and starred buffed up pretty boy Brad Pitt made only (said with tongue planted in cheek) around 46 mil in its first weekend. Go figure!

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Quick question: Are you actually saying "Van Helsing" wasn't hyped out the wazoo? I'd see the ad for that film multiple times in one commercial break on TV... believe me, the hype machine was running on all cylinders for VH.

I don't think those results are too surprising... VH is a much more "trendy" movie than Troy, and I'm sure drew a larger percentage of the younger movie-going public, despite Troy's higher "pretty boy" quotient. I may not be all that in touch with the kids, but I'm pretty sure they haven't been clamoring for a film treatment of 'The Iliad'... movie monsters, on the other hand, are pretty hot right now (Underworld's another recent example).

I should also remind people that good/bad reviews are almost never indicative of the financial success of a film... plenty of movies skewered by critics went on to rake in the cash, and (more commonly) lots of movies who have praise heaped on them by critics make almost NO money.

What you didn't mention was that VH's second week generated an over 60% drop-off in its ticket sales, which is much higher than normal... so maybe the tone of this thread is pretty indicative of the general word-of-mouth about that film...

Either way, I have no plans to see either film... I think I'll go rent "Lost Boys" and watch that again. I forgot about that film, but that was definitely a good one...

Hah! Lost Boys was good...
I'd have to say that everything you said made sense Stevie. I'm a little ambivalent about Troy. I hated Underworld, and VH...so maybe another trip back into the past wont be so bad? I'm not wild keen on seeing another Orlando Bloom film, and i'm not a big fan of Brad Pitt...but Last Samurai was good and that had TOM CRUISE in it. (I despise him) I suspect that another reason why Troy made less money was because, I believe, it was rater R. 18 or over, ya' know? ^^
That definitely puts a cap on the amount of people who're going to see that movie.
VH was definitely blown out of proportion...i'm not in the least bit suprised that it made so much money. Even I was a little hyped about it at first ;_;
Too bad it was so horrid...shoulda' listened to the critics.

VH v's TROY

Van Helsing was bad, Underworld was worse, Troy ... was good, but not great. Is it too much to ask for them to make a GREAT film with $200million!! I mean, c'mon, all that money and you can't get a decent scriptwriter!!! I don't get it. VH should of been bloody easy, est story and characters, state of the art technology, decent actors (except Kate, I know she's a fellow Brit but she annoys the hell out of me!) so why wasn't it good? If I worked for the studio I'd be tearing heads open, with what can be done today in the film industry, every trip to the cinema should be a spectacular event! Not a disappointment ... sorry, rant over!

Moral of the story is, don't go see VH, don't rent Underworld and only go see Troy if you like gorgeous looking men and great costumes!

I agree with you completely Cbugden -.-
Underworld was a disaster (and the only movie I liked Kate in was Serendipity...mainly because of John Cusack) <---that how you spell it?
VH was terrible, and you'd think it woulda' been easy enough wouldn't you? There was no plot...horrible acting...bleh. And the script was almost as bad as the gargoyle like appearance that the vampires had when they transformed...if not worse.
I still needa' see Troy though...
Once again, I hear that it's supposed to be historically accurate but...with all those pretty boys? Gah...