The X-Men meet Aliens and Frankenstein

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 2005)

Can you say 'derivative'? Not that that is always bad, sometimes something new and original rolls out. However...
Van Helsing is a run of the mill fantasy/horror movie that tries and fails to be a horror/comedy as well.
Although this is a very staid genre, here, The X-Men meet Aliens and a host of other Gothic stories and concepts, mainly Frankenstein. The James Bond take on a 19th century vampire hunter was unique, but flowed out of the whole X-Men vibe the movie had. Van Helsing is stuck with his own version of Q, a friar who makes undead killing weaponry.
When a secret order of the church, Van Helsing's regular employers, get word that one of their Transsylvanian vampire hunting families is in trouble, Van Helsing is dispatched to that far and strange place of the mind. After making a deal with the devil or the church, centuries ago the family promised that until they killed Dracula, none of their deceased ancestors could enter heaven.
Meanwhile, Dracula is busy employing the services of dr. Frankenstein, to create an electric elixir of life that will allow his manifold scions to live. These baby vampires, you see, have a tendency to just blow up in a messy goo whenever they get ready to make their first kill. As this won't do, and I guess Dracula is tired of reproducing by just biting people, he gets dr. Frankenstein to make the Monster of Frankenstein, run huge amounts of electricity through it and, miraculously transfer the proper life force to his Aliens-like brood. The villagers meanwhile are wholly unaware of this new development, as they are more than happy to let Dracula and his three 'brides' suck the life out of one or two of their kin every month. The number of these potential new vampires is enormous, and you have to wonder whether Dracula didn't have the foresight to see that this would lead to a huge vampire overpopulation problem. Who are they going to suck blood out of? They would depopulate all of Rumania. Anyway, I, like the movie, digress...
This is not the very worst horror movie ever made. However, the jokes fall flat, and you have to like Hugh Jackman (I don't). Also, Kate Beckinsale seems a little underpowered in her vampire fighting pirate queen outfit. However the worst I guess are the British accents of the Transsylvanian villagers, which, alongside the CGI laden sets, never let you forget that this is a British studio production. An homage to the Hammer days is one thing, making a good movie out of this is another.
(I liked Sleepy Hollow with Johnnie Depp and Christina Ricci better. Although it has a lot of the same feel, the story is weirder and actually scary in places.)