Van Disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (8 May 2004)

I, apparently like many moviegoers this weekend, had high expectations of this film. It took all of 25 minutes into `Van Helsing' before I knew that I had made a titanic mistake. Horrible CG, atrocious dialogue, slightly better than amateurish acting, and a totally predictable plot made this the worst movie that I have seen in at least a year.
From the opening battle, though the ridiculous boxing match between good and evil near the end, the viewer is subjected to constant cartoon-like CG which made the monsters only slightly more realistic than a good Xbox game and far less frightening. Even if I had been able to get around the action scenes-which seemed to always include someone falling from an absurd height, controlled by a series of impossible flipping maneuvers, and saved by a last minute grasp on a rope or a ledge-I could not forgive this film for ruining our classic monsters. Dracula, by the way, was the least scary example of the character that has ever been seen.
For me, bad accents ruin a movie as quickly as anything else. Most of the action in this movie takes place in east Europe creating an obvious need for actors who sound, oh, eastern European. Here too `Van Helsing' falls way short of the mark. Kate Beckinsale (Anna), though stunningly beautiful in her early 21st century black tights, caused my ears to ache whenever she spoke. Though not accurate, it may have been less intrusive if the director had made her speak with her native English accent. Dracula (Roxburgh) was simply unable to render anything remotely passable. The rest of the characters were so thinly defined and poorly acted that one soon loses interest in them or what they are saying anyway.
Finally, though the story is illogically convoluted and poorly conceived, the viewer never wonders what's going to happen next since everything is given away before it happens. About halfway through, the ending is spelled out right in front of the viewer and I still have no idea how so little story was stretched to two and a half hours. My standard for a good story line is asking myself `Could I have written this?' If the answer is `Yes' the movie is a stinker....`Yes'
A generous 4/10.