Shallow adventure movie

Rating: 5/10 (6 May 2004)

Van Helsing seems to have been written by the same screenwriter who wrote The League of Extraordinary Men. That movie had a lot of characters we are all familiar with (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, etc) as the good guys. Van Helsing, on the other hand, has werewolves and vampires as the bad guys. This film may be better than League of Extraordinary Men. But its flaws don't allow it to be a good movie either.
Caution: the following may contain spoilers.
The first problem comes from the fact that most of the battles between Van Helsing and the evil vampires are simply repetitive. The female vampires battle against Van Helsing and his friends, and they are defeated. After a few minutes, the vampires come back for more. They are defeated. People start to get bored because they are overwhelmed with a sense of deja-vu. Dracula brings his offspring back to life. Then they die. Later in the movie, he brings more offspring back to life again. We are just getting more of the same stuff. Another problem is cheesy dialogue. Most of it comes from the female vampires. All these problems are nothing compared to the disappointing ending you are going to see.
The visual effects are great in this movie. It seems that every time a movie is short on plot, Hollywood glosses over this shortcoming by saturating it with the most beautiful special effects money can buy. But not even that can stop you from getting bored before the movie reaches its climax.