Time has been kind to the film

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2019)

When I saw this in the theater back in 2004 it struck me as a singularly awful cinematic experience. The story was filled with far too many plotlines and a jumbled mess of characters. The film's visuals were overwrought and filled with some shockingly bad CGI work. The acting was pitched, hammy and annoying. The film made weird allusions to the bible and the references to the Universal Horror films of the 30's and 40's felt more forced than loving. Simply put I hated the film.
Anyway, I re-watched the film the other day for the first time in *years.* A lot of that is still true. No one will confuse this film for great cinema. It isn't even, necessarily, great popcorn fun. But time has really helped the film a lot. The CGI looks, technically, far worse today than it did in 2004; given the sheer amount of CGI present the film ends up with theatrical aura of artifice. This works to the film's advantage as it shifts the tone into camp. This immediately makes a lot of the overstuffed story and pitched acting *enjoyable* as loving cheesy homage to the original set of Universal films. Moreover, the fake looking CGI feels appropriately dated the way the black and white and pseudo-German expressionism feels dated in, for example, Frankenstein (1931). Time has made the film feel far more like an extension of, say, The House of Frankenstein than a cynical cash grab banking on the success of the Mummy movies.
The opening sequence still stands out as the best in the film. It is *exactly* what a homage to the big 3 monsters should be. I am glad that Summers had the wisdom (or backbone) to at least film that in black and white. (The film would be far better if it embraced being camp). If only the rest of the film was as well thought out I wouldn't had to wait 15 years to get a fairly fun movie.