Van Helsing - The London Assignment (Animated)

Rating:
Summary: Typical of genre but good...
Review: Reminds me a lot of just about all superhero cartoons. Interesting mixture of American animation and Japanese coloring and pencils, enhanced with computer animation (very cool!). The story is a little stretched, and doesn't make much sense (concerning the reason Hyde would want to make the queen younger; hello, he's still an old fart headed to a grave), but it held my interest and was nicely traditional but original.
The dialogue is usually pretty clever, even Hyde gets in a few funny lines.
The action is refreshingly American, meaning no stupid "action lines" in the background, or still action. Using Robbie Coltrane and Hugh Jackman (not to mention Dave Wenham) as primary voices added star power, and Jackman does a good job (you can feel his voice and personality overtake the animated Van Helsing).
The special features (including a making of the game featurette, which shows them converting the movie story to the game, and some sweet action scenes; a making of the movie featurette, which is good enough to be included on the motion picture itself, even if Josie Moran is extremely irratating; the animatics can only be appreciated by animators themselves). The interviews with Hugh Jackman are a nice insight into the character of Van Helsing, as well as Jackman himself. Interesting stuff, even if a little "fluffy", as one reviewer put it.
Overall, worth at least a rental (I bought it). A valuable addition to your collection of Van Helsing items, and fun to watch (over and over again in my case; 4 times in the rental period).

Rating:
Summary: More a promotional ploy than a valid prequel to the film
Review: "Van Helsing: The London Assignment" is an animated prequel to the 2004 Universal film "Van Helsing" in the sense that what takes place happens before the film. But it does not add anything to our understanding of Van Helsing and his mission beyond what we got from the movie. Actually, the only thing that makes this a story that takes place before the movie is the character of Mr. Hyde. Otherwise it could just as easily take place afterwards or be just another episode from "Van Helsing: The Animated Series." Consequently, this animated short is okay but hardly seems worth the effort of getting the movie cast to show up and do the voices, although certainly their dedication to the project is appreciated.

The overblown story is what stands out the most. Basically, Dr. Jekyll (voice of Dwight Schultz) wants to marry old Queen Victoria (voice of Tress MacNeille) so he turns into Mr. Hyde (voice of Robbie Coltrane) who is apparently doing the Jack the Ripper murders to get the life essences of his victims so that he can turn the queen into a young girl (voice of Tara Strong) who does not remember that she was married to Prince Albert and has scads of grandchildren. Of course, Gabriel Van Helsing (voiced by Hugh Jackman) has all sorts of objections to this as a Knight of the Holy Order, so he is sent by the Vatican, along with his faithful monk companion, Carl (voice of David Wenham), to stop the murders and save the soul of the monster doing the crimes. This is an interesting character point, not because of the religious ramifications, but more because it gives Van Helsing a reason not to just kill the monsters right away in the real world like he does in his practice sessions.

"Van Helsing: The London Assignment" ends up coming across as a slightly above averaged animated cartoon, albeit with a lot more blood than you will find on television. There is some computer generated images thrown in with the hand drawn animation, which only underscores the mishmash of anime styles. The contrasts are interesting, but they stop the visual style from coalescing. The bonus features end up being longer than the cartoon, which is where it becomes clear you are dealing with the Universal publicity department out to market "Van Helsing" for all it is worth. There is a 28-minute featurette on the making of the film hosted by actress Josie Maran, a brief chat with Jackman on his character, a series of animatic to animation sequences, and even a look at the making of the Van Helsing video game. Since there is a trailer for Universal's "The Chronicles of Riddick" and its own animated prequel you get the feeling Universal will be saddling up this particular pony for a lot of rides in the future. I probably would have liked all of this more if it was not packaged separately from the film itself.

Rating:
Summary: At least it's short!
Review: At the end of this animated "prequel" Van Helsing remarks to the rescued damsel that their predicament "wasn't so bad." To which she replies "I agree. It was worse."

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

In the early days of animation the studios would wash the cels so that they could be used again. This of course, destroyed millions of frames of classic animation art. Oh that this were possible in this case.

Van Helsing, voiced by Hugh Jackman who also played the character in the motion picture, is sent to London to track down a killer who's been offing young women. The madman turns out to be a Mr. Hyde (yep, that one) who's somehow bottling their life essences to restore Queen Victoria's youth and beauty so that he can marry her and live happily ever after with her in his fiery underground lair.

There's a lot of fighting and chasing and in the end Van Helsing saves the Queen and thwarts Jekyll/Hyde. Of course his wussy assistant is along for the ride and provides what I can only assume they intended to be comic relief.

I'd like to take this moment to point out that I am a man in his thirties with a wife, a son and a nice house in the suburbs and I realize that film was not made for me. But I think it's too violent in spots for the children it's obviously aimed at.

For example, a young woman is killed early on quite graphically and her body is shown limp with blood covering her newly slit throat. Needless to say I'm not recommending this one to parents.

The animation is serviceable at best and seems to reside somewhere between trying to be modern anime while trying to adhere to a 1970's Saturday morning cartoon budget. One exception being what appears to be some computer animation in the train sequence that's actually very good.

So what we've got here is a poorly produced commercial for the live action feature film that people are suckered into purchasing. The DVD includes a "behind the screams" look at Van Helsing, some fluffy interview material with Jackman telling you how great the movie is, and some promo stuff for the video game.

I'm waiting for the full-length movie to arrive from Netflix and I'll be posting a review soon. I can only hope that it doesn't live up to its prequel.

Rating:
Summary: Fun!
Review: Being a Hugh Jackman fan and having only recently heard about "The London Assignment," the short animated prequel to the film "Van Helsing," I decided to see what it was like. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. The animation was better than I expected and much easier to watch than the animation in some of the segments of "The Animatrix." I also was intrigued by the story of Van Helsing's struggle against Mr. Hyde. It gave much needed background and meaning to the Paris chase sequence of the film and introduced viewers to Van Helsing's connection to Carl. I really wish that I had seen "The London Assignment" before I saw "Van Helsing" in theaters. However, the most enjoyable aspect of "The London Assignment" was the fact that the principal actors (Jackman, David Wenham, Robbie Coltrane) lent their voices to their respective characters. The dialogue was similar to that in the movie, especially between Van Helsing and Carl. :-)

Also worth mentioning are the bonus features on the disc. There is a fairly good making-of documentary that is approximately thirty minutes long. It has plenty of snippets of cast/crew interviews. There is a *very* brief (as in three-four minutes:-() interview of Hugh Jackman as well as another short documentary about the making of the "Van Helsing" video game. The only truly "London Assignment"-related bonus feature contrasts the early storyboard sketches with the final product.

Bottom Line: Entertaining for Hugh Jackman fans and "Van Helsing" fans. Definitely worth renting at least once, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it (well, not yet at least;-)).

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Review: Being a Hugh Jackman fan and having only recently heard about "The London Assignment," the short animated prequel to the film "Van Helsing," I decided to see what it was like. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. The animation was better than I expected and much easier to watch than the animation in some of the segments of "The Animatrix." I also was intrigued by the story of Van Helsing's struggle against Mr. Hyde. It gave much needed background and meaning to the Paris chase sequence of the film and introduced viewers to Van Helsing's connection to Carl. I really wish that I had seen "The London Assignment" before I saw "Van Helsing" in theaters. However, the most enjoyable aspect of "The London Assignment" was the fact that the principal actors (Jackman, David Wenham, Robbie Coltrane) lent their voices to their respective characters. The dialogue was similar to that in the movie, especially between Van Helsing and Carl. :-)

Also worth mentioning are the bonus features on the disc. There is a fairly good making-of documentary that is approximately thirty minutes long. It has plenty of snippets of cast/crew interviews. There is a *very* brief (as in three-four minutes:-() interview of Hugh Jackman as well as another short documentary about the making of the "Van Helsing" video game. The only truly "London Assignment"-related bonus feature contrasts the early storyboard sketches with the final product.

Bottom Line: Entertaining for Hugh Jackman fans and "Van Helsing" fans. Definitely worth renting at least once, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it (well, not yet at least;-)).

Rating:
Summary: better than the live action movie!
Review: better acting (well voice acting anyway), played serious instead of campy, gore & plenty of it. VH works much better in animated form instead of live action. The super-human type of behavior is more believeable in this media than the other. Only complaint is that i wish the feature was a little bit longer, as it's only 33 minutes. hopefully more will come.

Rating:
Summary: better than the live action movie!
Review: better acting (well voice acting anyway), played serious instead of campy, gore & plenty of it. VH works much better in animated form instead of live action. The super-human type of behavior is more believeable in this media than the other. Only complaint is that i wish the feature was a little bit longer, as it's only 33 minutes. hopefully more will come.

Rating:
Summary: love it
Review: hi i saw the Real movie and it was really good i love all things about Count Dracula and i would love to see it again it had a lot of axsion in it that is y i like it u sould really go to see it in stead of buying the anitmaded thing because it doesnt have it all

Rating:
Summary: A fab film! and a MUST HAVE in your Van Helsing collection!
Review: I absolutely loved this animated show! I did not realize it was a 'prelude' to the Van Helsing movie until we watched the Bonus Features. My family viewed the movie first, and then we watched this...they were both awesome! In fact, I was searching Amazon for another movie that was perhaps released after the movie came out, as part of this animiated series. Nothing yet, but we are waiting....patiently! The Bonus Features were excellent -- it provided wonderful insight on the superb special effects of the Van Helsing movie -- we especially found the 'creation' of Dracula's brides quite interesting. Now we have it all -- this show, the Van Helsing movie, the classic CDs (i.e., Dracula and Frankenstein) that came with the Ultimate Collectors Edition. Life is good! :-)

Rating:
Summary: universal comeback strategy
Review: I must admit I really admire Universal's comeback strategy of providing better marketing techniques. I really enjoy these short films released at the same time of the movie. However, I don't know why it's got to be so short. Maybe a full 2 hour feature would make this a better dvd. But then again, it's not expensive and I do own many 30 minute DVD's. What I really enjoyed about this animated film was the just the true attempt to capture an adult audience. Frankly, when you see American animation, it's always geared towards children. The entire adult action market is owned and dominate by Japanese studios.

The fact that this film shows violence, a real adult plot, and even tie in's with the movie make it enjoyable. Although I'm not one for vampire movies, and I'm probably not going to watch the Helsing movie, but the dvd? Yes something I wanted to see and buy. I also bought the Riddick Dark Fury dvd which was advertised heavily on this DVD. The making of the movie and behind the scenes adds value to this DVD. I really think that what Universal is doing is adding an entire new Genre to film.

If they continue to make short films simultaneous with their block buster releases, I can certainly see a new following for these DVDs. But realistically I'll be waiting for a full budgeted 2 hour feature release of adult action animation. That's when a real attempt should be interesting.