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Post by Chris Ingersoll on May 8, 2004 21:40:35 GMT -5
Yikes. Don't go expecting much and you won't be disappointed by this. Probably.
Perfectly serviceable actionish flick, with some nice CGI on the creatures being the highlight(s); the final fight beteween Dracula and Van Helsing is a great little CGI romp. Everything else... yeeerch. Nothing againt Jackman, Beckinsale, or anyone else here; I think they did the best they could with what they were given. The movie really wanted to be some sort of turn-of-the-century James Bond, but came off little better than LXG did last summer.
In a bewildering "this is the final cut?!" moment, the boom mic was painfully visible in a couple of scenes about 2/3 through the movie. Not the shadow, the ACTUAL MIC.
In the end a fun but infinitely forgettable flick. If you really want to see it, catch a matinee so you don't have to shell out too much.
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Post by abe froman on May 8, 2004 22:01:40 GMT -5
I saw the boom mic when I watched Adaptation. When talking to a friend, he mentioned that it can be the fault of the projectionist if the film is tracking too low.
Still, it can turn a drama or action movie quickly into an unintentional comedy.
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Post by Chris Ingersoll on May 9, 2004 9:07:30 GMT -5
I saw the boom mic when I watched Adaptation. When talking to a friend, he mentioned that it can be the fault of the projectionist if the film is tracking too low. Yeah, our theater had the film much lower than it should have been. At the same time, however, with all the CGI and digital editing that was applied to the movie, you'd think the editor would have gone "hey, guys... can you digitially remove that thing?". |
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Post by baldue on May 9, 2004 16:13:27 GMT -5
LXG was a better movie then
Van Helsing, I did like Helsing
but it was not the best.
Frankenstein was the best
creature in the movie I
thought, plus the black
and white beginning was
very cool.
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Casey Jones at work
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Post by Casey Jones at work on May 10, 2004 7:32:28 GMT -5
The more I hear about Van Helsing the more I hear "CGI".
Call me old school but I HATE CGI. Practical Effects all the way....
I will give it a chance. I really love Universal Monsters and Universal Studios as the studio tour is what made me want to make films. Hopefully bad CGI doesn't kill it like it did The Hulk(okay, a bad script killed it too). I could still get into the Mummy movies and it's the same director, so I'm hoping I like it.
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Post by CJ again on May 10, 2004 7:33:56 GMT -5
On the boom mic thing, when I saw the US remake of The Ring in theatres, they projected it too low. Saw the mic in about half the shots. REALLY takes you out of the movie.
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Post by Chris Ingersoll on May 10, 2004 21:24:22 GMT -5
Call me old school but I HATE CGI. Practical Effects all the way.... The more movies slip into supernatural effects, the more they utilize CGI to make them believable. When a movie features two-three werewolves, a great Mr Hyde, Frankenstein's monster, and more vampires than you think, liberal application of CGI is to be expected. The only one of these that could be done without making the movie look like it came straight from the 50s is the Monster, who was actually the best looking of the lot. There is nothing bad about the CGI in this movie. It's one of its few redeeming qualities. Not to say I didn't enjoy the movie, but I have extremely low expectations for things like this.  |
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Post by pravusdeus on May 21, 2004 22:08:42 GMT -5
I totally agree about the mistakes, being a former film student (as I graduated college, which sucks, cause college is the best years of one's life) from FREDONIA. Mistakes really harm a production. I remember seeing Titanic for the first time and seeing building off in the background of what was suppossed to be open ocean really killed the experience, though naked Kate Winslet brought me right back into it.
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Post by Thad Killian on May 27, 2004 12:22:20 GMT -5
Terrible...terrible movie...yeeeccchhhhkkk
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Post by CaseyJonesatwork on Jun 2, 2004 14:39:07 GMT -5
I saw it this weekend, and uh..didn't really like it. The CG seemed good at the start, especially Hyde, but was bad near the end(Drac), which is strange.
I think there's a lot that could have been done better and still be action packed. Like hey, why not have Dracula just want the Frankenstein monster because it would be cool to have a pet monster around? ESPECIALLY one that can do your bidding during the day...
I don't see where they can go for a sequel since the time frame and location rules out Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is the only one left, for the most part. He's kind of a different breed than the other Universal Monsters though, he's a product of the 50s and has somewhat different meanings.
You KNOW they want to do Van Helsing vs. The Mummy sometime though, just because it'd be a possible goldmine...they'd have to have VH living until the 1930s or 40s and it not being too suspicious though, since ImHoTep was supposed to be awakened then for the first time.
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