It's all about the special effects, nothing else

Rating: 5/10 (9 May 2004)

"Van Helsing" opens with a highly entertaining black-and-white homage to the old Universal horror films. It's gloriously tongue-in-cheek, but, alas, only a tease, because the rest of the film fails to live up to the promise. The joy lasts only about six minutes or so. After that, the film turns into a noisy, boisterous, occasionally fun, special effects extravaganza.
This is a monster film where none of the monsters is scary. In fact, there isn't a frightening or suspenseful moment anywhere in this film. Just a couple of standard shocks, that's all. Then again, these monsters - Dracula, The Wolf Man and the Frankenstein Monster - quit being scary long ago. Every time I saw the Frankenstein Monster in "Van Helsing," my mind flashed back to Peter Boyle getting his finger lit on fire by Gene Hackman in "Young Frankenstein." If only "Van Helsing" had even an ounce of the humor of that classic.
Director Sommers keeps things moving at a frenetic pace, from one action sequence to another. But the dialogue is awful and he really cares little about his characters. Instead, he seems captivated by the visual effects and, frankly, they can only take a movie so far. The vampire babies, which look more like gargoyles than bats, seem to be an amalgam of "Aliens" and "Gremlins." The brides are fun, but they're certainly not as sexy or titillating as the three in Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Granted, there's a gleefully campy sense to Richard Roxburgh's Dracula,

Sommers treats his story too seriously. This film should be played with tongue firmly planted in cheek. But, unfortunately, due to some truly bad dialogue, I found myself laughing when, I am certain, Sommers did not plan on eliciting laughs. There are some well-placed bits of humor - most of them courtesy of David Wenham.
The good: a) Wenham providing delightful comic relief, proving how much better this film could have been had it adopted a lighter touch; b) Kate Beckinsale, her laughable accent notwithstanding, looking terrific in a bodice and knee-high boots; and c) Someone finally coming up with a line of dialogue to take care of the cinematic convention of the talking killer. And there's one funny throw-away line from an extra when Wenham sets off a tiny explosion in his lab.
One huge problem is Alan Silvestri's headache-inducing musical score. Sommers cranks up the volume so loud that the score not only becomes a distraction, it's awfully annoying, too. The film runs about 25 minutes too long and Sommers just doesn't know when to end his film.
After the film ended, the person I went with said, "Well, it's better than 'The Matrix Revolutions.'" That's not saying much, but, I suppose it's something.