An awful and pointless although entertaining movie

Rating: 4/10 (6 December 2005)

Director Stephen Sommers surprised the world in 1999 with a very fresh take on Universal Studio's classic "The Mummy", giving it new life while transforming it from Gothic horror to action-adventure in "Indiana Jones"' vein.
Now, and after an almost-as-good sequel, he tries it again, this time with the other classic monster from Universal's horror movies: Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man. Sadly, this time Sommers does a terribly bad job with the script and what could had been his masterpiece ended in one of the most awful movies of 2004: "Van Helsing".
Using the name and the mystique of the famous vampire hunter of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula", Sommers links the three monsters by turning the old scientist into some kind of Vatican's 007 complete with fantastic artifacts and macho attitude.
The idea, at its very core, is very good, after all, who better than Van Helsing to fight the classic monsters of Universal's golden age of horror? Too bad that the idea was developed with bad results.
Hugh Jackman stars as Gabriel Van Helsing, an agent of the Vatican whose job is to kill monsters. He is sent to Transilvania to save a gypsy family who has been fighting vampire king Dracula for centuries; their problem: if the family line extinguishes before Dracula's death, the entire clan will go to hell. To make things worse, there are only two survivors: Anna and Velkan Valerious(played by Kate Beckinsale and Will Kemp respectively).
The script is weak. That is the main problem here, since it's full of plot holes that the audience may end up wondering what the hell is the point of the movie. While Sommers tries to put mysteries to keep the audience thrilled, the story goes on circles and never fully develops the potential of the many subplots thrown in there.
To make things worse, the acting is terribly bad in most cases. While Jackman and David Wenham(as Van Helsing's sidekick) do their best with the bad script, the rest of the cast goes over-the-top in scenes that are so unintentionally funny that one ends up wondering if this is not a farcical comedy(like the brilliant "Young Frankenstein") instead of Sommers' recent action blockbuster.
Sommers direction still is solid, and the action scenes will keep you on the edge of the seat. The SFX for the most part are very well done and the beautiful locations worth the ticket. It's a shame that the script and the acting ruins what could have been a very good movie.
3/10