Van Helsing: The London Assignment (2004)

Good concept, poorly executed.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It is an excellent short movie. Van Helsing look much better than the live action movie. And In the animated short movies Van Helsing already have all those weapon what he used latter in the live action movie. I just like it. But I think instead of a short animated movie, they should made a full length animated movie. They could have tell the doctor story about how he started his laboratory and research. How he met the queen of England. They could have told the story about how Van Helsing become a monster hunter. There is just so many story to tell. If they could just make a animated series of Van Helsing, it would be much much better. I have seen many short movies but Van Helsing: The London Assignment was one of the best. Universal Picture should consider to make an full length animated movie based on Van Helsing. People would love it.

"The London Assignment" is an animated short film that runs for roughly half an hour and came out almost the exact same time as the movie about the title character Van Helsing. Hugh Jackman also does the voice acting in this one here and there are a couple more familiar names such as Robbie Coltrane from the Harry Potter movies or Tara Strong who has been extremely prolific in voice acting for a long time now. Unfortunately, I was not impressed really by any of the aspects in this film. That includes the story, the characters and the animation. The only thing that director Sharon Bridgeman sort-of succeeded with was making this a fairly atmospheric watch and it was an interesting combination of the supernatural aspects and very traditional aspects history-wise such as Queen Victoria. But that's pretty much it. I would recommend this only to the most hardcore fans of Van Helsing. Everybody else does not need to see it.

When I heard that a anime prequel to Van Helsing was release I had to check it out.Van Helsing 2004 is one of my favorite films and this film was a good one as well. Van Helsing: The London Assignment is a prequel to the events of Van Helsing the movie where Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde was the first villain of the film this one helps explain how they first met.Hugh Jackman reprise his role as Van Helsing in this anime prequel to the film.In this anime the story is that Van Helsing must investigate a series of murders where women have been drain of their life force. When Dr. Jekyll begins to make a formula to restore the youth of the Queen.The animators made sure to keep the film in the dark setting since the story plot is dark as well.They really took the time to make the shadow effect work when it was needed.The score is pretty good as well, each piece of music helps tells the story of the film. The voice acting helps the story as well which is very important in making a animation film.Also the DVD comes with a nice collection of bonus features like behind the scenes for both this film and the Van Helsing film itself along with behind the scenes of the game.So for a short film it is very good work with helping the story of Van Helsing.So all in all if you're a fan of anime or Van Helsing you'll enjoy this film.I give Van Helsing The London Assignment a 10 out of 10

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.4/10