Van Helsing (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Van Helsing
Original title Van Helsing
Country of production USA , Czech Republic
original language English
Publishing year 2004
length 131 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Stephen Sommers
script Stephen Sommers
production Bob Ducsay
music Alan Silvestri
camera Allen Daviau
cut Ray Bushey III
Bob Ducsay
Kelly Matsumoto
Jim May
occupation

Van Helsing is an American mystery - horror film by director Stephen Sommers in 2004, in which the figure of the same name for the first time playing the lead role. Van Helsing is commissioned by the Vatican to protect the life of Princess Anna Valerious and to assist her in the destruction of Count Dracula , who is terrorizing her country.

action

The film begins with Dr. Frankenstein's latest project: an artificially created man. The Romanian Count Dracula wants to use the monster for certain purposes, which the doctor denies him. Dracula bites the doctor and the monster wakes up from its sleep. It takes the dead body of Frankenstein to a nearby mill, which is then set on fire by the villagers. The mill collapses with the monster in flames before Dracula and his brides reach the mill.

After Van Helsing, who was wanted in all of Europe on behalf of the Vatican in Paris, was Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde stopped him, he is sent to Transylvania, Romania , with a new assignment . This task is particularly interesting for Van Helsing as it could be related to his own past, which he has completely forgotten. He is supposed to protect the last descendants of the Valerious family, who have fought against Count Dracula for generations. However, there are only two family members left: Anna Valerious and her brother Velkan. When he arrived in Transylvania, he allied himself with Anna, who was initially very suspicious and whose brother had just had an accident during a werewolf hunt. Only after Van Helsing rescued her from an attack by Dracula's three brides and killed one of them (Marishka) does Anna consent to the alliance.

Anna's brother was bitten by the werewolf while hunting, which is why he turns into a werewolf in the moonlight. He comes to Anna in Valerious Castle and wants to tell her something. Before he can do that, however, he transforms. Van Helsing comes to Anna's aid and pursues her brother throughout the village until the werewolf escapes because Anna prevents Van Helsing from killing him. She still sees her brother in the werewolf.

Frankenstein's monster is wanted by Dracula for his experiments. When Van Helsing and Dracula meet for the first time, Dracula names Van Helsing Gabriel, later Van Helsing is described as the left hand of God , which raises the suspicion that he might be the Archangel Gabriel . Van Helsing also learns that Count Dracula was born in 1422 and killed by him in 1462.

Van Helsing, Anna and Van Helsing's companion Carl, a friar, find Frankenstein's monster in the collapsed mill and use a trick to save the monster from Dracula and to kill a bride of the vampire. Van Helsing is bitten during a fight with Anna's brother. He is now slowly becoming a werewolf himself. But the last bride kidnaps Anna and tells Van Helsing that Count Dracula would release Anna in exchange for Frankenstein's monster. Van Helsing stuns the monster with a blowpipe arrow and rushes with the monk to Dracula's castle to save Anna.

Anna, in a trance and not defending herself against Dracula, dances with him in a ballroom full of people. He wants to make her his bride because he knows that Van Helsing will not bring him Frankenstein's monster and that he only has one bride left. But before Dracula can bite Anna, Van Helsing saves her. Dracula's servant reports that he captured Frankenstein's monster. Dracula lets the people in the ballroom, who are really vampires, loose on the three people. They escape through a window when Carl accidentally uses one of his latest inventions, a sphere with artificially generated light. The vampires die from the bright, sun-like light. Van Helsing tries to save the monster, but is too late. Shortly thereafter, he begins to become a werewolf.

After Frankenstein's monster falls into Dracula's hands, Dracula tries to bring to life his children, who are stillborn because of their parents' vampirism. All previous experiments for which they used Anna's father and brother have failed, but this time it should succeed.

Van Helsing and Anna Valerious are now looking for Dracula's castle. You can find it by stepping through a mirror .

In the battle between Dracula and Van Helsing, Van Helsing transforms completely into a werewolf, which is the only way to defeat Dracula. He kills Dracula by biting his throat.

Meanwhile, after killing the last of the brides, Anna has found a secret antidote to the metamorphosis that Dracula possessed to render invading werewolves harmless. Anna rushes to Van Helsing with it. He pounces on her. The friar arrives and wants to kill Van Helsing with a silver stake, which he had previously ordered in case Anna should be late. But he notices in time that Anna Van Helsing administered the antiserum. However, Anna was slain by Van Helsing as a werewolf due to its weight.

The last Valerious is dead, but since Dracula died before that, the long-dead generations of the Valerious family can finally go to heaven.

Van Helsing burns Anna's body on the Romanian coast because she had never seen the sea. During Anna's burning, Van Helsing sees Anna's spirit united with her family and says goodbye to her. Then he rides back to Rome with Carl, ready to take the next assignment.

background

  • The film picks up on Bram Stoker's original book and blends in other stories such as those of Frankenstein's monster, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or the werewolf into the act. The scene is equipped with the Van Helsing before use in the Vatican with various weapons very reminiscent, to corresponding sequences from James Bond films with the participation of Q . At the ball in the castle, one involuntarily associates the corresponding event from the film Dance of the Vampires .
  • On May 14, 2004, the action game Van Helsing appeared in Germany for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox . Van Helsing was developed by Vivendi and was a video game implementation with an official license. The game (unlike the film) was received positively by critics.
  • The historical template for Van Helsing is Gerard van Swieten , who was seen as an educator against "superstition", especially in the case of vampires, and who was sent to Moravia by the Austrian Empress Maria Theresia in 1755 to clarify the vampire situation there.

Reviews

Holger Kreitling wrote in the newspaper Die Welt on May 6, 2004 that the film was "stupid" and seemed "synthetic". The critic described it as "nimble huge crap" and "gothic gossip" in which "a hodgepodge" of "advertising icons, trivial sleeves, action villains and comic characters" "races across the screen". The film "wastes" the digital special effects instead of "using" them.

“In imposing backdrops but with rather meager special effects, Sommers staged a loveless video game version of the old legends. In doing so, he ignored the laws of the genre: If Dracula craves young girls' necks even during the day, it leaves a bitter aftertaste not only for Bela Lugosi fans. [...] In addition to such rapes of myths, he also refrained from characterizing the characters: The reason for Van Helsing's manic hunting mania remains as hidden as his past. [...] The visual highlight are the sexy satan women of the vampire prince: They fly around with glee like bats on ecstasy - until Van Helsing's arrows whir through the air. But they do not hit the viewer's heart. Conclusion: Action-laden monsters that, despite the impressive appearance, only remain on the surface. "

- cinema.de

“With this film vehicle, Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) comes out as an incompetent director and screenwriter who doesn't know when to end. Because Van Helsing is nothing more than a string of bad special effects, paired with stupid jokes and dialogues that can no longer be surpassed in terms of ridiculousness. "

- moviemaze.de

"The film shows human and monstrous sides, both in the case of the hunters and their prey, embeds cool action sequences in a story that reveals secrets and lets the curse of evil work where it is not expected."

- kino.de

“Van Helsing”, the latest product from Hollywood's blockbuster laboratories, has become a horror film in every way. Creepy because this prime example of postmodern looting and rape of classic literary and movie material goes wrong with just about anything a movie can do wrong, and is a really sad climax in the series of all those flicks that have a lack of narrative content with more and more Try to compensate for the thunderous action, equipment bombast and special effects. "

- filmstarts.de

“Lifeless attempt by Universal Studios to combine its successful horror characters from the 1930s in a modern, successful film. The interchangeable action film unfolds only few interesting characters, while the plot only serves as an occasion for rather modest digital effects that rob the film of the last bit of persuasiveness. "

- Lexicon of international film

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating "valuable".

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Van Helsing . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2004 (PDF; test number: 97 803 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Van Helsing . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ^ Critique by Holger Kreitling
  4. ↑ cinema.de
  5. ↑ moviemaze.de ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  6. ↑ kino.de ( Memento from February 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ filmstarts.de
  8. ↑ Van Helsing. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 24, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ↑ fbw-filmbeval.com