Van Helsing review

Van Helsing (2004)

Composer: Alan Silvestri

Number of tracks: 12

Total time: 42:53

Overview:

After the success of The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001), director/writer Stephen Sommer decided to tackle more classic Universal monsters in the action/adventure/horror film Van Helsing. The film had promise with a fun premise and atmospheric cinematography, not to mention including some great modern British and Australian actors including Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, David Wenham and Richard Roxburgh. Unfortunately, the film starts out strong but by the time the second and third acts arrive, everything has devolved into such an abysmal state of "over the top"-ness that the film finally implodes on itself.

Along with impressive production designs and the charismatic (and always fun) performances of Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, the strongest area of the production was Alan Silvestri's score. Silvestri delivers a huge, dark, heart pounding action score that beats you over the head with the sheer power of a real orchestra.... This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

Review of music:

Alan Silvestri is no stranger to writing great action and fantasy scores as is obvious in just a short list of his credentials: Back to the Future Trilogy, Predator-Predator 2, The Mummy Returns and The Abyss. For Van Helsing, Silvestri takes the raw power of the full orchestra and uses it to the best of his abilities, delivering one huge sounding action score with plenty of horror movie stylings thrown in.

There are several themes and motifs running throughout the score, though there are only four primary themes of note. The first theme that is introduced on the album is the theme for Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) and his minions, but could also be seen as the primary theme as it keeps appearing throughout the score. This theme is immediately introduced in "Transylvania 1887" and is heavily used in the various action sequences. A sorrowful and tragically heroic theme is given to Frankenstein's Monster, which is introduced in "Burn it Down!" (track 2). The last two themes are for the romance between Anna (Kate Beckinsale) and Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) as well as Van Helsing's theme. The Love theme is really only heard in the closing "Reunited" cue where it is given an appropriately dramatic and beautiful rendition. Incidentally, the Love theme sounds highly reminiscent of music from The Mummy Returns. As for Van Helsing's theme, it consists of some of the oddest instrumental choices of the entire score including acoustic guitar, electronic percussion, choir and orchestra. It's a memorable theme, if a tad out of place among the rest of the music.

The majority of the commercial album is of the action material with only very brief respites mixed in. Tracks like "All Hallow's Eve Ball" and "Reunited" start off as more subdued pieces, but by the end they have morphed into more action music. "Attacking Brides", "Transylvanian Horses" and "Final Battle" are great showcases of Silvestri's action writing at its best and most powerful.

This is not to say that Silvestri's action writing is bad! On the contrary, it's extremely impressive, unfortunately the album presentation takes away all the softer moments and "breathing room" tracks so that you are left with just a little over 40 minutes of pure action music.

Closing thoughts:

Silvestri has done some great work in his career and Van Helsing is probably his best purely action oriented score after the original Predator (1987). The score is both dark and powerful, thematic and diverse. Unlike most action scores of the 2000's, this one does not fall into the Hans Zimmer/Media Ventures mold which is always a major plus.

The album is rather a hard one to judge, though. On the one hand, the music is great and the short runtime is perfect for an all action music album. On the other hand, this is an album with all action music. The album is missing some of the great non-action material heard in the film, thus making the listening experiences a bit... tiring.

Ultimately I'll have to say check out the album of Van Helsing if you are in the mood for some great, wall shaking action music that is also thematically sound. For most listeners though, just pick out a few tracks that you really like and get those. This is one of those scores that really needs a complete release.... Recommended, with caution.

Score:

3 out of 5