Consumption of cheaply-conceived yet expensively-made junk fails to satisfy.

Rating: 1/10 (7 November 2007)

Hollywood films of pure 'popcorn' entertainment value don't require any excuse beyond that of the old fairground barker of cheap sensation who is their true ancestor. And the casual audience for this sort of tripe are not about to be persuaded into an appreciation of any art-house offerings. If there are both producers and audiences out there who want to throw vast sums of their money into the production of rubbish, so be it. About half-an-hour of this frantic and wildly misfiring film was quite enough to take me well past the boredom barrier. 'Van Helsing' actually thinks it is quite a cool and witty film, with all those horror-movie references, when in actual fact it is nothing but a farrago of enormously expensive and utterly tedious special effects.
If you want modern witty and cool with great CGI, go to Pitof's superbly atmospheric and gripping take on the criminal underworld of old Paris, in 'Vidocq'.
If you want witty and cool with that old-fashioned grasp of the magic that already haunts the movie camera, go to Polanski's hilarious and chilling nightmare 'Dance of the Vampires'.
But of course if you are perfectly satisfied by the consumption of this cheaply-conceived yet expensively-made junk, then that is your business. And very good business it is, I'm sure!