Glad I saw it for Free

Rating: Null/10 (28 May 2004)

Apologies from the start for any comparisons with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but there are a couple of "extraordinary" coincidences. Firstly, both deal with victorian Gothic horror. Where as TLG started as a clever book that was dumbed down for film, Van Helsing from the opening scenes promised to be nothing more than "Top Trumps" of horror movies (for the under 20's, "Top Trumps" is the same idea as pokemon") that dealt intelligently with the same characters. Secondly, Mr Hyde was remarkably similar in both films.
Despite the prospect of Van Helsing wiping out every monster of film history, it failed to deliver. Don't get me wrong, practically every monster was in it... just not a lot happened. Frankenstein's monster was for want of a better word, crap. Van Helsing's monk (sorry Fry), reprised the role of Q from James Bond fame, mixed with Pete Prostlewaites' role in Dragon Heart. In other words "comedy" relief in a semaphored style. I found myself surprisingly bored through various sections of the movie. Had the movie gone for die hard 3 thrills, it would have been perfect, but too often, it tried to explain it's lack of plot - and failed.
After the first five minutes all originality is used up, and if like me, you have read all the books concerned, part of your brain will be correcting the story throughout the rest of the film - because no-one else has.
Shame really. Dumber or Cleverer, either would have worked.