Contender for the Worst Film of The Year

Rating: 1/10 (7 May 2004)

Wow, what a stinker. Before I go on, let me just say that I'm not a hard man to please. All I ask is that a movie commits to something!! ANYTHING. Van Helsing was so all over the place it didn't know whether it was a Broad comedy or an action FX extravaganza. It failed on every level.
SPOILERS
Van Helsing must vanquish evil in all physical forms (good premise) He travels to Transylvania (where every woman in drop dead gorgeous) to battle Dracula and a Werewolf, who happens to be the blood relative of the best looking woman in Romania: Anna (Kate Beckinsale). Van Helsing must kill Dracula so that Anna's clan may enter the gates of Heaven (for many. many, many, generations they have been cursed). Rome orders Van Helsing to, at any cost, protect Anna and vanquish this evil before her lineage dies and the whole damn family spends eternity in purgatory. Sort of a "Saving Private Ryan" for the occult set. Again, cool premise BUT WAIT there's more: Van Helsing is really...oh I can't ruin this one you have to see it for yourselves to believe it.
There are baby vampires?!? And a monster who, after being locked under ground for a year, still seems to know how everything works.
Look if you're going to give a character exposition, at least give it to someone who knows what their talking about! I mean really, HOW WOULD FRANKENSTEIN KNOW EVERYTHING? He's been in exile. I know the information needs to come out but come on even the 8 year old kid sitting a row away at the screening said:"How come he knows that?" Bad play Sommers.
Nope this movie is a dud. Hugh Jackman is wasted, and so is Kate Beckinsale. It's too cheesy and contains way too many SPFX. What happened to stunt men and stunt women. We can tell, you know, it's not seamless. And the dialogue..Oh my God it's atrocious!!!
Mom always said "If you don't have anything nice to say..." so I have to say I really liked the woman you played Dracula's Red headed wife: something--ina, she's the last bride to die and she seemed like she was having fun. I also dug the...no I didn't it sorry. The rest sucked. Too bad I thought "The Mummy" was fun.