Classic horror writers, actors and directors turn in their graves

Rating: 3/10 (12 January 2005)

The idea behind this film comes off the back of this recent trend of blending together different stories to make one lesser story; the stories in question being, principally; those of Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolf Man. From this premise, you can't expect 'greatness', but you can expect a fun romp and, suffice to say, this film doesn't even deliver on that front; as it's action-fuelled monster antics get tiresome very quickly indeed. Stephen Sommers has basically done what he did with The Mummy, in that he's taken an existing story and added CGI effects, only this time the result is a miserable mess of a film with absolutely terrible CGI and a complete lack of intrigue from the characters and the plot line. The muddled plot basically follows Count Dracula, who has decided to enlist the help of Baron Frankenstein, along with a werewolf to help him in his plot to do...something. Enter Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman); the intelligent (or not, in this case) monster hunter that goes on Dracula's tail along with an irritating priest and a Princess (played by the beautiful Kate Beckinsale) and what follows is what should be an entertaining monster mash, but what is actually a dull, cliché ridden, action film with little or nothing of what made it's influences great.
Dracula has been turned from a malevolent conglomeration of evil into a comic book villain. Frankenstein's Monster has taken way too much of the emotional side that Karloff portrayed so brilliantly in 'Bride of Frankenstein' and is little more than a pathetic mess of a character. The way that the werewolves are integrated into the story is actually quite good, but that's shot down in flames by the fact that the wolves themselves look ridiculous. Whoever decided that CGI was the best way to do effects wants shooting; it looks rubbish, and the only reason I can think of why it's used is to save valuable time that would have been used creating real effects. If you want evidence of how NOT to do special effects, see the Mr Hyde sequence towards the start. Absolutely awful. The title character is nothing like the character that Bram Stoker wrote for him. I don't even know why they chose to use the name 'Van Helsing' anyway, most of the target audience will have never have heard of him and since he's nothing like the character that the likes of Peter Cushing and Anthony Hopkins portrayed so well, they might as well have simply made a new monster hunter for the film. Then I wouldn't have been bothered about him being called 'Gabriel' instead of 'Abraham'. Kate Beckinsale could have been the film's saving grace, but even Mrs sweetness herself isn't herself in this awful film. I don't know if it's the terrible accent, the rubbish haircut or the daft outfits; but she's nothing like the ultra sexy character she played in the surprisingly good 'Underworld'.
Basically, what we have here is a film that was made by a man that thought he had an idea that was good enough to carry a film on it's own. The complete lack of ideas and reliance on changes to the original characters shows that, and this is a very sad motion picture indeed. You may have gone into this expecting something of a tribute to the great horror classics, but this film features little in the way of horror at all. If you ever wanted to see a film that showed beyond doubt that CGI isn't the way to create good effects, this is the film to see. But since you don't want to see a film like that, you have no reason to see 'Van Helsing'. My advice is to avoid this trash at all costs.