kaynorr and jovianconsensus and the delightful heathey.One would expect, Stoker-fiend that I am, that I would fill this post with howls of outrage at the movie's violence to the novel, the character ("Coming soon from Stephen Sommers: Gabriel Lincoln, Undying Hero Of The Civil War"), and so forth.
However, I cleverly noticed something as I went into the big room with the screen in front: this is a movie, not a novel. Casting my mind back over the previews, which featured a stagecoach jumping a crevasse, steampunk repeating crossbows, and Kate Beckinsale in a corset and a terrible terrible Gypsy accent, I decided that I had more than enough evidence that this wasn't, actually, going to have anything to do with Dracula.
At that, it was more true to the book than Coppola's abortion of a movie was, in that Dracula was evil, and his lust was clearly selfish, not tragic. And the plot hung together, sort of, and had constant momentum.
From the first black-and-white scene, Sommers had me by the short hairs, and he only seldom let go -- when his Dr. Frankenstein uttered a voice-perfect rendition of the Holy Words from 1932 (or lip-synched a brilliant dubbing job), I gave Sommers all the rope he could handle. (He even named his Frankenstein "Victor," instead of "Henry." See, he can keep real names, sometimes.) Also, the intro title said "Transylvania 1888," which instantly cured me of any lingering delusion that we'd be seeing the real Van Helsing at all, since he'd have been Hugh Jackman's age closer to 1848. (Now doesn't someone want to see a movie in which Abraham Van Helsing exorcises that specter that started haunting Europe about then?)
Sommers did a pretty decent job with his alternate version; his Van Helsing doesn't utter Schwarzenegger tag-lines when he kills something, he crosses himself and says "Requiescat in pace." Sure, there's Faramir with an oddly dubbed voice as the comic relief, but it's kept to a minimum, mostly, and the old Universal films did way more violence to their feel with the wacky peasants and servants and so on. (Browning's Dracula is particularly unforgiveable.) We even got the burning windmill, and a second verse to "Even a man who is pure in heart..."
One or two set-pieces aspired to that height of bravura when you imagine Sommers, Henry-Frankenstein-like, crouching over the CGI machines in a echoing lightning storm, crying "More! More power and it will come to life!" In short, given the constraints of the action form (and of Sommers' likely story vocabulary), this was the best remake of Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man we're likely to see for some time.
Plus, Kate Beckinsale in a corset.
