Richard Roxburgh = Dracula

[winter]

Right. I saw Van Helsing today.

Overall? The plot could be used as a sieve, but the acting, visuals and music are worth it.


First shot of Van Helsing was a squee moment. Why? Because that neckerchief had the same pattern as the gloves Alucard wears in Hellsing :) Yes, gotta make that Van Helsing/Hellsing layout...

Intro? Brilliant. I don't have the words to describe how good a Dracula Richard Roxburgh makes: crazy, magnetic, powerful, old and youthful at the same time. Like, Oldman who? This is what Dracula should look like. I loved the whole old-horror-movie feel of the entire sequence.

The fight with Hyde was middling. Bad CGI, good banter. Hugh Jackman is mreeeow, but that's a given. I like his accent: kinda British, but not as snooty as in Kate and Leopold.

Rome was cheesy at times, but Faramir in disguise Friar Carl made up for it. I think they must have made David stoop and shuffle around on bent knees throughout the movie - he's really only two inches shorter than Hugh, and he looked a head shorter. Later on the undertaker pronounced his height as 5'8", when David's really 6'. The sun-bomb was way too obvious.

Then there was the tied-up boytoy. Caranthir-in-my-head immediately demanded a crossover for his own nefarious purposes, but I told him I'm already indulging his perverted borderline-rape tendencies in another story. Even if Will Kemp looked delectable, tied to the stake like that.

I didn't like the CGI vampires much. Too obvious, not batlike enough. The werewolves were better: actually handsome. Frankenstein's monster was also decent.

The plot? I'll be merciful and not comment. Suffice it to say, I can name a dozen plotholes off the top of my head. By the end, I was only watching for the pretty. (Which included Kate Beckinsale. If I could choose any woman to look like, it'd be a toss-up between her and Catherine Zeta-Jones.)

Oh, and David Wenham had an ultra-cool moment as he woke up after his "wild night" ^__^ For a moment he looked at the woman, and he had this kinda Faramir-like smirk. Altogether, I'm really amazed at his acting range.

Will this movie change my life? No.

Will I go to see the sequel? Hell yes.


Other news: Fingon's angsting, Maedhros' playing pachinko, Thranduil has a ko-gyaru girlfriend.

Comments

[spiteful-caddy.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you can pin a lot of the blame on Tarantino, directors have been exploiting the gray area between their power and the power of the screen writers for decades now. x.X But yeah, it has grown a lot worse recently (it used to be this kind of muscle-flexing produced good movies). I blame the indie crossovers (guys like Robert Rodriguez and Guillermo del Toro) because when they're put on a dream project with a huge budget they just go completely fanboy, and fanboys are apparently awful writer/directors (exempting Tarantino, because he's a 70s fanboy and that somehow works).

Can you tell I like Tarantino yet? If Kill Bill was your first exposure to him you really should check out the rest of his library, Reservoir Dogs alone will make you adore him.

[winter]

Hey, I generally like Tarantino. I liked Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, haven't seen Jackie Brown, and positively adored Kill Bill Volume 2. It's just the overindulgent Kill Bill Vol. 1 that made me somewhat regret spending the money for the cinema ticket - IMHO it could have easily been cut to make one three-hour movie, not two two-hour ones.