Van Helsing (official)

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Originally Posted by Despair

MechDeus, What fight sequences in VH? Aside from final CG battle between WereHelsing and Dracula, there were NO fight sequences we can speak off.

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"Fighting" does not mean "only fists." Saving Private Ryan had tons of troops fighting each other and that was almost exclusively guns.

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And PLEASE dont make me laugh by saying that VH story is put well together. Its a joke, and so is the execution. Huge leaps of logic, plot holes and other nuances.

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I didn't say it was well-constructed, I said it was better then "I'm shot and I want revenge."

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Originally Posted by sunshine

If you count vampire cacoons that needs electricity to hatch, which somehow is magnified by a zombie monster (weak excuse to bring in Frankenstein) which will help an poorly acted Dracula who will die only by a wolfmans bite, a wolfman which they said in the beginning (Anna and her brother vs. the wolfman) Dracula made himself.

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Yes, I do find that more interesting then a story as old as stories themselves.

Once again: I know you've had this problem before, Sunshine, but Despair normally doesn't - read what I wrote before responding. I said the writing in Kill Bill was better but the story in Van Helsing was better. Two different things. As an example for the still lost: Cowboy Bebop features a blah, typical story littered with cliche setups, backstory, and ideas (two army friends fight over a chick, one turns evil while the other forms a ragtag band of heroes including a hot love interest, a gruff but lovable leader, the suave good guy everyone loves, and the hyperkinetic comedy character), but the writing is so good it transcends such things.

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More ridiculous would be fine for this movie... but they billed this movie as Indiana Jones with monsters. This wasn't Indiana Jones with monsters.

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I didn't pay attention to the ads so I don't give a shit what they advertise themselves as. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ran advertisments that made it seem like a totally different movie but that doesn't make it not great. Ignore advertising.

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Kill Bills scenes look like they are acting because it's a throwback to the Samurai series... they did the same in those ones.

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Well they successfully pulled off looking like ass.

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It's supposed to look more like teamwork.

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Teamwork? I don't follow.

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By the same token, though, Uma Thurman did good work and the fight scenes were action packed.

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I've never really liked her much. Decent in Gattaca, IIRC.

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The scenes weren't over the top, they were exactly what they needed to be to make the film consistent.

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Who said they were over the top? Because it wasn't me.

P.S. Blood doesn't flow like it did in KB and people can't run up railings and fight properly like that. It was over the top, the reason it was consistant is because the rest of the movie was also pushing that. They were one and the same here, they never have to be exclusive of each other (another example: Versus).

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Originally Posted by soundwave

Mech Deus, watch Kill Bill Vol.2 even if you didn't like the first--it sets a different tone and focuses more on dialogue. It is the better half even though I enjoyed both parts immensely. Listen to CV--go watch the second film.

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Oh, I will, I just haven't felt like spending money on it yet. I might sometime next week or I might see Hellboy instead (which I do really want to see and haven't yet).

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Originally Posted by sunshine

For a film based on paying homage and also transcending the kung fu genre? Not in the slightest.

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You do realize 90% of kung-fu movies are over-the-top, silly, and goofy, right?

You missed my point. That's WHY they weren't over the top. It was a movie set to pay homage to kung fu action movies. And it's a movie that did a great job at paying homage to kung fu movies. In most movies what Kill Bill did would be silly, but because of the movies style and direction it works and works well.

Writing and story are one and the same. Your arguement is that Van Helsings is better? Explain the logic behind this? If it's simply that Kill Bills is simple then you're wrong. Simple stories are often the best, otherwise you get a story so wrapped up it becomes a bit silly (new star wars, Van helsing).

Sometimes you get good ones like Seven. But Van Helsing isn't Seven, that's for sure.

I'm assuming here i guess but more sophisticated (Van Helsing) does not equal bad. Someone getting shot and their child stolen from their womb after trying to leave a self destructive industry of death is the story of Kill Bill. I'm not following you on this whole story issue.

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Originally Posted by sunshine

Writing and story are one and the same.

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I don't know what this arguement is about, but that's a stupid thing to say in any context.

Actually that was stupid. I'm just not clear what he's saying about the story in Kill Bill compared to Van Helsing.

I think it's simply just that Van Helsings story about killing Dracula by biting him as a wolf which Dracula created himself, before he exploits electricity through Frankenstein to incubate his gargoyle looking children is better than Kill Bills simple tale of revenge.

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Originally Posted by sunshine

You missed my point. That's WHY they weren't over the top. It was a movie set to pay homage to kung fu action movies. And it's a movie that did a great job at paying homage to kung fu movies.

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All you're saying is that because KB goes over the top in order to homage other over the top movies, it's no longer over the top. That makes no sense.

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In most movies what Kill Bill did would be silly, but because of the movies style and direction it works and works well.

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The whole movie is done in a similar fashion which is why the craziness doesn't seem out of place, a movie's flow has nothing to do with it originally based its source material from.

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Your arguement is that Van Helsings is better? Explain the logic behind this? If it's simply that Kill Bills is simple then you're wrong. Simple stories are often the best, otherwise you get a story so wrapped up it becomes a bit silly (new star wars, Van helsing).

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It's that VH tries something different and actually takes initiative while trying to be creative. KB's is hackneyed typicality. It has nothing to do with whether or not it's simplistic and everything to do with that KB's story is one of the longest running cliches in action movie history that doesn't even try, whereas there are very few films EVER that attempt to do what VH did.

Frank Millar's comic Sin City: That Yellow Bastard is quite possibly the best example I can give of how to take a simplistic and extremely cliche story and inject new life into it. It tosses in twists and uses some great writing to differentiate it from every other story that's used the same setup, expanding the scenario farther then visual media is normally willing to take such a concept.

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Someone getting shot and their child stolen from their womb after trying to leave a self destructive industry of death is the story of Kill Bill. I'm not following you on this whole story issue.

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Story - The plot of a narrative or dramatic work.
Writing - This is what fleshes out the above, I use it primarily in reference to speech and character development in movies as that's the focus of the writing for such. For a book the writing would obviously be everything in print but the story can still be seperately discussed, they're two different entities that play off each other.

VH: Good story, terrible writing.
KB: Blah story, good writing.

Neither is great in either aspect but they're opposites at how well they do in those categories.

P.S. Why is everyone so hung up on why Dracula has werewolves around when he controls them completely? Did most of you miss the scenes where the werewolf could barely stand in Dracula's presence and was mentally forced to perform every bidding by Drac barely even thinking commands? He holds total dominion over werewolves (which make extremely powerful slaves), it's only until their first full moon (a month at most) that he has to avoid them and then they're his for life.

Dr. Frankenstein found a way to turn electricity into life. Vampire children (considering how most legends stick to vampires being unable to reproduce normally, this was their own added twist) were born dead and so Dracula was using Frankenstein to find a way to create life so that his children could be born. Frankenstein's monster was the end result of that project but was also a conduit himself. A normal person couldn't survive long enough to transfer any electricity through himself and the machine, the werewolf - being a supernatural creature - could take far more punishment but not enough to fully resuscitate the children, but Frankenstein's monster was built specifically to withstand such conditions.

Yes, VH does have a number of plot holes, but some of you guys have no ability to put anything together.

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Originally Posted by FuryFox

I'll watch an old Kung Fu flick any day over it.

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Shit yeah.

Story of Ricky, Champ vs. Champ, Master of the Flying Guillotine, Fearless Fighters, Born Invincible, Chinese Super Ninja...they all piss on Kill Bill.

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Originally Posted by sunshine

It rips most of its material directly out of the kung fu classics...

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...and does it less than half as well.

Kill Bill does kung fu classics the same Dole.

And I'm just going to chalk everything up to likes and dislikes.

I will say this though: innovation in Van Helsing falls flat because it is so poorly put together.

A revenge story doesn't make a bad story because 10 people have done it before Tarantino.

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

All you're saying is that because KB goes over the top in order to homage other over the top movies, it's no longer over the top. That makes no sense.

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Yes it does. It's called consistency. If Tarantino hadn't gone over the top it wouldn't have been in the vein of the older movies. It served a purpose and fit the movie like a glove. It's all in context.

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Originally Posted by sunshine

I will say this though: innovation in Van Helsing falls flat because it is so poorly put together.

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In regards to plot you've barely brought up a single real flaw.

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A revenge story doesn't make a bad story because 10 people have done it before Tarantino.

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Closer to a few million. And yes, copying a cliche and doing nothing with it is bad.

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Yes it does. It's called consistency. If Tarantino hadn't gone over the top it wouldn't have been in the vein of the older movies. It served a purpose and fit the movie like a glove. It's all in context.

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Thank you for contridiciting yourself and agreeing with me.

Umm... no it's not. Over the top in context being acceptable is the point.

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

In regards to plot you've barely brought up a single real flaw.

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Umm... my first 2 posts after seeing this movie brought up a ton of flaws.

1) They don't ever explain Van Helsings past with Dracula, which was Van Helsings point in going to Transylvania for the order to begin with.

2) Werewolf Van Helsing trying to kill Dracula from using Frankenstein to incubate his gargoyle babies is one the dumbest stories in quite some time.

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Closer to a few million. And yes, copying a cliche and doing nothing with it is bad.

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100, a few million, point was it didn't matter. Tarantino told the revenge story in a different light then Punisher did or Man on Fire did. It also wasn't a simple revenge story because of the surprise child twist at the end. Not only this the revenge tale was riddled with old school kung fu homage.

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Originally Posted by sunshine

Umm... no it's not.

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What's not? Your "it" wouldn't make any sense if it referred to my last sentence and you don't specify otherwise.

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Over the top in context being acceptable is the point.

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No one argued whether or not it was accepted, you brought that up and imagined other people saying it all by yourself (funny enough, you did pretty much the same thing in reference to KB being over-the-top in the first place). You said it wasn't over-the-top a few posts ago, now you're saying it is.

Once again: A movie can be consistantly over-the-top.