Awful: bad plot, bad script, juvenile story. One of the worst

Rating: 2/10 (26 December 2004)

Net: a total waste of time. Worse than that really: you come away with fewer brain cells.
"Van Helsing" is probably OK for young people who have grown up with video games and who are basically numbed by TV-grade plot, stories, and dialogue. Or really anyone with oatmeal instead of a brain.
It does have plenty of action. A couple of the creatures are well-done. There are a few decent scenes, that is, scenes that show some creativity and actually have something like a plan behind their execution. Mostly, however, it's just one disconnected action scene after another.
There's no real story. Or maybe there is a story but it got put aside to focus on displaying the dark, damp and brooding-Gothic sets. It all looks like some teenager's heavy metal fantasy.
Overall it lacks any sense of drama. There's no pacing. The script is right out of a soap opera. The acting is pathetic. Beckinsale is about the same as she was in "Underworld" - dark clothes, long pauses with meaningful looks, and as much posturing as she can fit in.
Early on they walk into Dracula's castle - they see it off in the distance and walk through a woods. For the rest of the movie they work on unraveling a mystery involving a torn scroll, hidden passages, secret doors, passwords, a magic ring, etc. With much effort they unravel the mystery and are able to get into Dracula's castle - the same one they'd walked over to earlier.
Most of the characters look and sound alike with heavy middle-European accents. Except Jackman, who delivers his lines with modern sarcasm.
David Wenham does a nice job. As does Robbie Coltrane - although it's only his voice. Richard Roxburgh is a fair Dracula.
The movie steals from numerous other movies: Jackman has several Batman tools; he works for a secret organization and has a Q designing gadgets for him; refs to earlier Dracula-Werewolf movies are all over.
Frankenstein is in it of course. If you remember the original legend: Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker were working on a stage adaptation of "The King and I" when William Morris stopped by with a new wallpaper design and suggested a combo creation "Frankula".
Go see "Blade" and "Dracula 2000" if you like this kind of thing.