Van Helsing: The London Assignment

Decente corto/película, una precuela que no funciona nada mal a mi parecer. Este corto nos cuenta una historia que pasa antes de la película, centrándose en el personaje de Van Helsing descubriendo el misterio de las mujeres involucradas con el Dr. Jekyll. Es una historia simple y con algunas conveniencias, pero entretenida y que funciona bastante para los que vimos la película o incluso para ver este corto antes de la cinta, pudiendo conectar con los personajes previo a ver la película. Podemos ver a un Van Helsing muy parecido al de la película, con sus diversos gadgets que utiliza para cazar monstruos y con su aspecto tan característico que me encanta. Por otro lado, el personaje de Jekyll/Hyde es un villano algo simple, ya que no se le da mucho desarrollo pero a mi parecer funciona para darnos un contexto de lo que se ve después en la cinta. El mundo sigue siendo apagado y con colores oscuros, y la animación utilizada me gusto mucho y creo que queda muy bien con el tono del corto. Los diseños de los personajes no me convencieron del todo, si bien Hugh Jackman retoma su papel, se me hace raro el diseño de Van Helsing, ya que no tiene un parecido con el de la película. Por ultimo, la banda sonora sigue siendo algo olvidable y no se nota una mejora. En conclusión, un corto decente, no llega a ser malo y a mi parecer sirve como una precuela interesante para que sume algo de historia a lo visto en la película. Lo recomiendo.

An animated feature only 30 to 40 minutes but it's good!!!

Normally, I don't review short films but personally, I thought something about this fun-size Van Helsing adventure really stood out. While Stephen Sommers' attempt to turn his love letter to the Universal Monsters movies of the '40s into a franchise didn't quite work out, I think this movie is actually much better than the live-action feature-length movie. While I was disappointed by how short it was at a mere half-hour, this mini-movie is still quite fun. Not sure why this was sold as a separate DVD when it could've been part of a double-disc DVD paired with the original movie similiar to DreamWorks' double-DVD packs from 2008-2012 rather than a stand-alone DVD that barely lasts an hour when factoring in special features. The voice acting is good, the art direction is awesome and the action sequences are incredibly stylish. Is this promotional animated tie-in remarkable? Maybe not. But I still thought it was more competently made than the CGI-heavy live-action counterpart.

A nice little prologue of the Van Helsing character with a decent amount of depth. Jackman's accent feels a little off but his voice work is great and dynamic with Wenham sounds and works well. The animation itself looks great and surprisingly violent throughout. It's twist on events in London was interesting but barely touched the surface.

it is good to know how the movie came about from this cartoon version and then watching the real life version.

It's music and writing is a little above average only because of the amount of time given for this whole feature being a half-hour. There isn't much for background to the main characters and the violence is questionable when it comes to audience viewing. However, the digital renderings mixed with animation is unique, the voice-over work is good and the action is fun. For my full review of Van Helsing: The London Assignment (2004), check it out on this IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406310/reviews-20

A rather dull animated short prequel about Van Helsing against Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde.

In the same year that Stephen Sommers hyper animated movie burst into the cinema we also got this not quite so hyper actual animated prequel. The short story tells us what happened before Van Helsing arrived in Transylvania, his previous mission trying to capture Dr Jekyll in London...obviously. The plot for this is a bit far out if you ask me but I guess nothing is a surprise coming from Sommers. Van Helsing is investigating a very Jack the Ripper-esque affair where by people are being mysteriously murdered horribly and seemingly drained of their life force. Its nothing very original to be frank, at first I thought they really should of just used the Ripper as the villain its such an obvious copy. The thing is, Dr Jekyll is using this life force to make and keep his love...Queen Victoria, young and beautiful so they can be together. Yep Queen Victoria...as if right, but that's not all the story makes out that beneath Buckingham Palace there are some huge hellish fiery caves or catacombs where Dr Jekyll will live with his young Queen Vic, it looks like some kind of underground city you'd see in the old 80's cartoon Dungeons & Dragons. I know its just a prequel idea for an animation that will never see the light of day but it is suppose to be cannon and may have been made had the movie gone down better (dunno why it wasn't actually). But the plot is so dumb and feels like its been whipped up so fast just to get it out asap after the movie release. You only have to look at the DVD cover to see how poor it is, the artwork is lame and cheap looking, mind you the animation isn't much better. It really does look like an old children's cartoon that you'd watch on a Saturday morning, there is no flair, nothing quirky or unique about it, its just plain and average looking with really drab colours and layouts. On top of that the characters don't even resemble their movie character counterparts! Van Helsing is completely different looking facially and with straight hair, where as Wenham's character is now a young looking boy or someone in his early twenties. The only character accurately depicted is Mr Hyde who is spot on. Nothing wrong with that but only if they look good, these two heroes just look generic and boring. Basically the only reason they made this is because of the one line of dialog from the movie where Van Helsing says to Mr Hyde that he missed him in London (referring to gun shots). Mr Hyde then replies that he didn't miss, he actually hit him. So for some reason Sommers and co thought we needed to see some fast tracked back story about how Mr Hyde ended up getting shot by Van Helsing and the rest of that mission. Yeah OK not a bad idea if the mission was of any interest and not totally crap, oh and maybe if the animation was any good also. Just having the actual cast voice the characters in this doesn't mean it will be instantly worth it, the rest must be good too.

just as good as the live action film and it's a nice origin story

Not the prequel that it should of been, but it's still quite action packed for it's run-time. The animation is decent, minor blood, good use of characters. While it uses the voice actors from the main Movie, there's still an awkward feel when someone speaks. As a prequel, it works yet it's more or less just the same as the beginning of the main Movie. I would have been more interesting on Helsing's origin and past assignments. It still manages to keep up an interesting story though, and is entertaining enough on it's own.