A Wasted Opportunity

Rating: 3/10 (6 December 2005)

I loved the idea of Van Helsing as a character - in fact I loved it in 1993 when it was announced that Anthony Hopkins was about to reprise the role from Coppoloa's Dracula in a film called 'The Van Helsing Chronicles' - the whole idea of a monster hunter, while not original is always appealing (in fact I kind of wished that instead of 'The Mummy Returns' Sommers had made a sequel about Evie and Rick facing up against another of the Universal monsters.
However, Van Helsing shot its wad severely by including three (four if you include Mr. Hyde) of the established heavy hitters of the Universal stable in the first film. Who was left? The Invisible Man, The Gill Man and The Phatom of the Opera.
It sort of aped the philosophy of the later Universal films when they were trying to grab audiences in the later, declining years - slam as many monsters in as you can. Now that was alright for the Monster Squad as it was a one off film but with a potential franchise it was an incredibly stupid mistake.
Also, the fact that Sommers seems to have lost any of the leanness of story telling that made Deep Rising and The Mummy such fun that the whole affair became so damned bloated that it effectively screwed up a character that could have had a lot of potential and that's the tragedy.
The storyline was so bloated that it became difficult to care for any of the characters and some of the choices for characterisation smacked heavily of TV Pilot movie sensibilities - Van Helsing did not need to be immortal (or whatever muddied nonsense was hinted at in his final confrontation with Dracula).
The acting was fine from Jackman, Wenham and Beckinsale - was superb from Frankensteins monster, was bland from the wolf man and was almost unwatchable from Dracula and his Brides - it was almost as if Richard Roxborough (an actor I usually rate) thought that the movie was 'Carry on Dracula'.
A terribly wasted opportunity that did the unforgivable thing - by becoming an action film that became boring and turgid.