Alan Moore's ideas, none of his talent

Rating: 8/10 (18 May 2004)

I actually liked Van Helsing. It's a wild rollercoaster ride. And as an attempt to make something more akin to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen than Stephen Norrington's abysmally bad movie version of Alan Moore's work of genius, it worked.
Unfortunately, it didn't have Alan Moore, who could have made the dialogue work too and the character motivations more interesting. But who cares - the action was what it was about, there was plenty of it, and I for one at times even sat in the cinema wishing for a RWD button to take another look at what actually happened here or there.
A final aside: Now that Alan Moore has opened the can of worms that is public domain reworking of classic characters, we will see plenty of bad instances of it in the future. It's the way of the world (or Hollywood at least), and Alan Moore will regrettably never see one cent of the bazillions of dollars generated from his idea. Well, Alan Moore will most likely do very nicely on his own anyway, what with America's Best Comics and all.
How many times was that? Four? Not nearly enough, so here comes another three: Alan Moore, Alan Moore, Alan Moore. The greatest writer in existence.