Where's the story ?

Rating: 4/10 (16 May 2004)

I went in search of a good movie and came away with something a good deal less. Be assured, the sequel will not show up as every famed monster that Hollywood has ever exploited is already dead by the end of this one. It boasts a cast of fine actors but Stephen Sommers seems to overlook the fact that special effects must support and add to a good story, otherwise it's a video game. In The Mummy the ineptitude of most of the main characters along with a tongue in cheek script carried the day. Here Gabe Van Helsing is a serious man in search of serious things and vampires appear out of the woodwork at the throw of a switch. It's as if they were hired out at great cost and had to be used to justify the great expense. In the end we grow weary of the scrapes that our hero and heroine get in and out of. The only thing to offset the gung ho heroes is the comic touch of David Wenham ( formerly seen as Faramir) as an inept sidekick. It could all have been so much better.