What a waste...

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2004)

I went to this film with hopes high knowing that I'd previously enjoyed the work of Stephen Sommers, Hugh Jackman and Richard Roxburgh. I thought, "We're in very good hands here...what could possibly go wrong?"
What indeed.
This movie, an exercise in Hollywood's current addiction to vulgar excess, is a mess from top to bottom. It's chief flaws are in it's utterly dreadful script and the terrible, and I mean bloody AWFUL, performances by most of the cast. From the opening sequence, shot as an homage to the horror films Universal Studios produced throughout the 1930's and 40's, the performances go so far over the top as to be almost unwatchable. One of the key elements in making a successful horror fantasy is the audience has to be able to believe the world you're creating for them. They have to have something recognizable as being true to life so they can accept the remaining fantastic elements at face value. That something is usually found in the performances of the actors who, if they're good at their craft, know they have to make everything they're doing in this hokey environment utterly believable. But I'm afraid Mr. Summers and company give us nothing to believe in here, from the overproduced design elements, including some impossibly anachronistic prop weapons for the hero, to the clunky dialogue, to the bad performances by most involved. The worst, or wurst if you prefer, performance comes from the usually reliable Richard Roxburgh, whose portrayal of Dracula relies far too heavily on Gary Oldman's tantrum-throwing whiner of a count in the unfortunately titled "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (unfortunate because if you actually read the novel you realize Bram Stoker had very little to do with this version) and does nothing to sustain the mood established by Bela Lugosi or the power and menace created by Christopher Lee (still the screen's greatest Dracula).
Still, I try and find something positive to say about every film and in this case we have good news in the performance of Shuler Hensley as the Frankenstein Monster. He brings to the creature a sympathy that was very affecting, even though he was asked to perform under an outrageous amount of make-up (excessive once again). His operatic background made him well suited to play the role with a truthfulness that was sorely lacking in most of the rest of the cast.
What Mr. Sommers hoped to create was a continuation of the hybrid Horror-Comedy-Action film he started in "The Mummy" pictures. In "Van Helsing" he made a Horror-Comedy-Action film the was neither frightening, funny, or exciting. Instead it's a perfect example of Hollywood Summer Blockbuster filmmaking: runaway excess that is without an ounce of substance, or to quote Shakespeare, "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." I hope these talented people will exercise better judgement and produce future work more worthy of their talents.