Not camp enough unfortunately

Rating: Null/10 (1 December 2005)

I've seen some comments on this film suggesting that it has been misunderstood because, really, it's just a camp, cult film. The problem I have with it, is that if that was the intention, it fails because it's just not camp enough, and if that wasn't the intention, it fails because it's dire. Camp dire is fine. Just plain dire isn't. If I was Bram Stoker, I'd be suing from beyond the grave.
Now I loved director Stephen Sommers "Mummy" movies, especially the first one, which was lots of fun, I really like fine actors Hugh Jackman, Richard Roxburgh (wonderfully camp in Moulin Rouge) and David Wenham and I was fairly open minded about Kate Beckinsale as I'd hardly seen her in anything before, so I sat down to watch this movie (on pay per view at home) perfectly willing to be entertained. I rarely watch a movie about which I can find nothing good to say, but this was one of those rarities. From the incoherent script, to the confused plot, to the ear splitting sound track, to the overuse and abuse of CGI, to the tacky Brides of Frankenstein (or whatever those girlies were supposed to be. When it comes to scantily clad women, erotic is good, tacky isn't), to Kate Beckinsale's silly costume, to the revolting peasants, the entire thing was such a mess. I think it just proves again that the quality of a movie bears little relation to how much money you throw at it, and that there is really no substitute for a decent script.
I'm not averse to special effects movies. Try and imagine films like, say, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, or Star Trek: First Contact or last year's War of the Worlds, without special effects. Doesn't really work, does it? And those are all movies I loved, because the effects are used to enhance the story, to tell it better. But what you have at the core of those films, is a good exciting story, well written, and with characters you care about.
Who cares about any of these guys? Van Helsing fails mostly because it substitutes special effects for character and story, and then tries to take itself seriously. It's quite a cynical film, hoping to find an audience dumb enough to lap it up.
I'm still trying to imagine what good actors like Jackman and Wenham were doing in this? Maybe it was one of those movies that's much more fun to make than to watch, I'm sure they had a blast in Prague, or where ever it was, and earned enough to pay the mortgage for a few months. I'm also well aware that as a middle aged woman I'm probably not the target audience for Van Helsing. So it really only remains to say that I sat down to watch it with my two teenage kids, one of each sex. They hated it too, and gave up watching long before I did. When a movie is so bad that my teenage son would rather do his homework than watch - that's bad!