A Guilty Pleasure, But Still a Bad Film

Rating: 5/10 (1 April 2007)

Gabriel VanHelsing (an immortal, younger, less educated Abraham VanHelsing) and Kate Beckinsale must fight vampires, werewolves, Mr. Hyde, and some weird little creatures that are like Jawas with gas masks... can Hugh Jackman still kick butt when he's not Wolverine? I liked this film, but hate myself for liking it. The plot was cheesy, the CGI was overwhelmingly bad, the characters all exhibited some sort of infinite gymnastic skill and luck on landing (apparently they always roll a 20 on their balance checks) and the target audience was clearly rather young. Especially because of the CGI, this was a film I should have hated. My friend Jason says he read a review that claimed Troma could make a better film... and it was probably true.
What I liked was the fact it was so over-the-top. Once or twice and I would have been "yeah right" but doing things to the extreme fifty times made it one of those "so bad it's good" films for me. Also, I think this is by far Kate Beckinsale's most alluring role. (I think she plays a similar character in "Underworld", which I haven't seen, and I imagine that's comparable.) The use of the Frankenstein story was well done. The Dracula story I think was more of a stretch, and why VanHelsing had to be completely re-written from the Stoker version I don't know and don't support. So many aspects of this film reminded me of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" with the combination of old characters and the futuristic weaponry. But, I think this film might have sucked less. Maybe.
Would I watch it again? It's possible, if only to get a better second opinion now that I know what's to be expected. But it frankly was not a good film, and there's no way to convince me that it was. We have received much better from Hugh Jackman... let's do hi ma favor and pretend this one never happened.