Perfect example of one giant mess of a movie.

Rating: 5/10 (7 February 2009)

I was personally fond with Stephen Sommer's "The Mummy" films. Yes, they were dumb, but they were a whole lot of fun.
I wasn't aware that it was Sommers who directed Van Helsing until the end credits, and I have to say that I just don't get him.
You have a semi-homage to the classic Universal horror movies, mainly Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man, still, it's all jumbled up into something that wants to pass as plot, that I don't fully understand no matter how many times I see it.
Abraham Van Helsing, the vampires scholar, is turned into Gabriel Van Helsing, sort of a James Bond/Batman from Transylvania, with all kinds of gadgets and technology that I doubt existed by that time.
The movie starts sort of sci-fi with the thinnest and most insulting homage to Frankenstein at the beginning, then has more of an action tone with Van Helsing's fight against Mr. Hyde, and halfway through involves a Gothic (and graphic) horror style that becomes confusing. It has some comic relief mixed with creepy and disturbing CGI morphing sequences, including multiple werewolf transformations, and also spectacular stunts.
There is some sort of back story involving a family's quest to kill Dracula, and Gabriel's past, but it sounds too epic to be an action flick.
All of this makes me wonder, what the hell is this? Action? Horror? Comedy? Camp? The musical score by Alan Silvestri is quite amusing and exciting (and brief in CD) as it seems to be the only coherent aspect of this troubled production.
Overall, the movie is indeed fun and somehow watchable, except for the previously mentioned transformation scenes and too many vampire jaws opening longer than physically possible (something we already saw in lesser extent in "The Mummy"). It's a bad movie, but if there's nothing else to see or do, you can watch it and spend time trying to figure out what genre it is. "Acthorror", "horredy", "gothcamp"?