Van Helsing

Rating: 7/10 (7 April 2005)

The fearless vampire killer (Hugh Jackman) is sent to Transylvania to seek out Anna (Kate Beckinsale) and aid her in her quest to rid the countryside of Dracula (Richard Roxburgh). Once there, he encounters the evil Count's diabolical plot tohave children!
Yes, the movie is as goofy as it sounds. Director Stephen Sommers has entirely done away with any attempts to scare the audience and made an action fantasy out of the classic horror characters. The movie opens rather poorly, with Van Helsing tracking Mr. Hyde into Notre Dame and subsequently killing him. The action is sluggish, the one-liners are lame and the computer effects are lame. After the action moves to Transylvania, the movie picks up speed in a campy fashion and quickly becomes a guilty pleasure. Beckinsale, as the last in a family cursed by Dracula, is wonderful; complete with skin-tight wardrobe and overdone accent she matches Jackman's one-liners with perfect ease. Roxburgh, as Dracula, is about the only truly good performer on hand. His version of the vampire would be menacing in a movie that was not going for camp. But, if this movie had been serious it would be the complete failure many consider it to be. I don't know whether the laughs were intentional, but without them this movie would be a bomb. The three brides of Dracula are the most hilarious of all the characters, spouting lines as though they were recently kicked off a soap opera. The movie would have benefited from scaling back on the computer effects. There are so many and none are very convincing. The worst being the Mr. Hyde character, but he is not present after the first 10 minutes. The werewolf is not too good either; it is an obvious, unconvincing effect that should have been thought out more carefully before transferring it to the screen. The idea of having the skin of the human ripped off to reveal the monster underneath is very flawed; how many layers does he/it have? As with most pre-programmed summer blockbusters, check your brain at the door and you will have a good time.