"It had great special effects"

Rating: 4/10 (3 June 2004)

"It had great special effects." That's about all i heard from any source before going to see this movie. Unfortunately, to a movie, that little five-letter phrase is like what "Can't we just be friends?" is to a relationship: A hint that nothing good is about to happen.
So i went to see it anyway? Of course i did. This movie HAD to be good. I'd been waiting for it to come out for nearly a year. Everything about the concept interested me. A sort of Vampire$ meets Blade. I was even thinking about how pitifully the upcoming Blade 3 would pale in comparison to Van Helsing. I haven't been that naive since the 3rd time i said "I do."
You probably want me to elaborate on what was so bad about it. I wish i could nail it down to any one thing. But i can't quite put my finger on it.
I'll start with the convoluted plot. James Bond, er, i mean Van Helsing, an agent of MI-6, er, i mean a secret religious security/intelligence agency under the auspices of the churches of multiple religious faiths, is sent (accompanied by Q, er, i mean Carl, the weapons/gadgets expert from MI-6, er, I mean...oh forget it!) to find/aid the last remaining descendants of a family that has been battling Count Dracula for several centuries. Why the sudden urgency? Because the family pledged long ago never to set foot in heaven until the Count has been defeated. Should the last of the family fall, their souls and those of all their ancestors will be forever in limbo between heaven and purgatory. There's an equally convoluted sub-plot/co-plot involving the Dracula family that i won't bother going into as there's no easy way to do it without going spoilers.
The actors/actresses all seemed about as interested in being in this movie as i felt in watching it. Jackman, Beckinsale and Roxburgh, all of whom I've loved in multiple other roles, gave performances worthy of only the most mediocre of after-school-specials. Granted, the movie was so fast-paced that there wasn't much room for petty little things like feeling, or character development, i still couldn't help but imagine as i sat there, how much better the movie might have been if it had been performed as a school play by one of my 2nd wife's kindergarten classes
I hope the writers/producers of this masterpiece are already in a back room somewhere shredding documents and deleting e-mails, because just like in the Enron incident, they've got some 'splaining to do. They're going to have to explain to someone eventually why this movie was made in the first place, much less released in theaters.