The Best Comedy of the Year!

Rating: Null/10 (8 May 2004)

Van Helsing was probably one of the funnier movies I've seen for a while. Or wait.. What's that you say? It wasn't supposed to be a comedy? Wow.
The first thing I noticed about this movie was how beautiful it was. The cinematography, sets, costumes, and cast were all wonderful as many of the people here have said. But there was still one thing missing here: a real plot and characters.
When I first went to see this movie, I was expecting an anime-style action movie, but when I first laid eyes on the poorly portrayed Mr. Hyde and Werewolves, I was about ready to leave the theater. I was reminded of the graphical disappointments that were "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" and "Underworld". When is Hollywood going to get it through their heads that Mr. Hyde is not some strange, hunch-backed hairy creature incapable of normal speech? It's like they took the original character and gave him steroids along with a little bit of cocaine. As for the werewolves, I am absolutely disgusted. Now I know we all have our own images of what werewolves should look like, but come on! At least don't give us these hyeana-headed disproportionate monstrosities! It completely ruins the movie. They could have used sockpuppets with mean faces drawn on them and gotten a better effect.
The second thing in this movie that completely cracked me up was the scene where Van Helsing sticks his hand into the mirror and says the line "it's cold". It's so obviously stolen from The Matrix that they might as well have had a million Agent Smiths come out of the castle and attack the poor villagers.
I'm not saying that "stealing" certain things makes a movie bad. Believe it or not, most movies have copied off one another since the beggining of film making. Shakespeare's plot points and situations have been used countless times (e.g. "10 things I Hate About You"). I thought Van Helsing portrayed Dracula very well.
You have to admit that to make a movie like Van Helsing would have been very difficult. First of all, you would have to know all of the stories and characters by heart. Looking back on what your fourth grade teacher told you, write (ahem...direct) what you know. The Director/Writer of this movie obviously did not know very much about any of his characters except possibly Dracula. Van Helsing can be looked at as a failure to learn from. And hey, it's not even that much of a failure. Besides, it will give you a few good laughs.

P.S. What's all of this bashing of 13 year olds? I'm thirteen and I find it quite offensive when people like floridanate practically segregate us from the rest of society by saying that "we may very well enjoy this film". It's not like I can get away with saying "Those childish white people may very well enjoy this film". Keep that in mind for the next time you feel like insulting a general group of people for no particular reason.