Sadly Disappointing.

Rating: Null/10 (29 May 2004)

I had such high hopes for this movie. I really did! I loved the "Mummy" movies and Hugh Jackman was so wonderful in the X-Men films, so I was sure that "Van Helsing" would be great. I was wrong.
"Van Helsing" simply tries to do too much. It starts out as a promising homage to the old black and white Universal Creature Features, and ends up a confusing, overdone mess. Everyone is here: Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, a couple of werewolves, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and some pretty cool looking vampire
brides and their hideous offspring. One would think that with such an ensemble cast, this movie would be a thrilling rollercoaster ride. But it's not. I'm not sure how such an action packed, monster filled movie can be so dreadfully dull, but I found myself falling asleep within 15 minutes. Hugh Jackman was good, as he
usually is, and Kate Beckinsale as the butt-kicking beauty was only slightly less effective, but the dialogue is corny, (and sometimes, much too modern for the Edwardian setting) some of the acting borders on frantic and annoying
(especially in the case of Richard Roxburgh) and the plot simply tries too hard to mash together too many stories into a two hour time slot. Frankenstein's
Monster was quite likable and very cool to look at, and David Wenham (Faramir from LOTR) provided some nice comedic touches, but I simply grew tired of cast members endlessly swinging across great chasms on ropes and sexy vampire
women going on and on about killing their victims instead of just going ahead and DOING it, already...a point addressed by Kate Beckinsale late in the film. The ending was both cheesy and a total downer but by that point, I was just
happy to see it end.
I wanted to like this film, and I tried, but ultimately, I found it to be empty, emotionless, lifeless, flat, uninvolving, and shockingly dull. It's a large piece of stale eye-candy...which is a huge shame because it had the potential to be a
summer blockbuster. Sadly, it fell a few hundred miles short of achieving that goal.