Probably the worst movie since Battlefield Earth.

Rating: 1/10 (7 May 2004)

Probably the biggest mistake most people make is excusing crap action movies, as "popcorn" or "mindless" flicks. Wrong. Bad movies are bad because they are badly made. Van Helsing prompted me to register on this site because my disgust could not be contained. This movie is utter crap.
Lets do a rundown. Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman, again, doing a moody, withkept ragged drifter character) is a monster slayer. He travels around Europe, with the support of the Vatican(?), getting rid of those that are deemed evil. After defeating one of these creatures (Dr. Jekyl, in a completely dumbed down, and, unfortunately, one of the better fight scenes in the whole movie), he is sent off to kill the ellustrious Dracula (Played melodramically by Richard Roxbury). Along for the ride is a no-name actor friar, as he repeatedly liked to be regarded, supplying such 19th centure weaponry as an automatic crossbow and a light grenade (anyone who DIDNT see when this would be used deserved to be shot), and awful "comic" relief.
We're treated to about 10 seconds of backstory, which is just to introduce Kate Beckansale as the helpless heroine, and we're off on a ride of plot holes, bad CGI (except for the werewolves), horrible scriptwriting and just as horrible directing. Besides ripping off every single classic monster movie ever made, Director Sommers managed to turn the stuff he stole into complete dredge. One liners like "We transelvians tend to see the bridge side of death" and "She's DEAD" occupy the intelligence of 95% of anything said. It's all cringeworthy. As the movie wears on, fight scenes are repeated over and over again. The evil deeds, in which Dracula and his 3 wives (screeching away) wish to re-populate their dying kind, are repeated. Twice. We've never told why they need to electrocute wearwolves to do it, nor why Frankensteins monster, but they do. Twice.
We also see our heroes plummit through walls, bounce off trees (without as much as a scratch), swing on ropes far, far too much, and manage to accomplish jumps and flips that would make the chinese midget from "Oceans Eleven" look impressed. But I'll be fair. The production values were enormous, and the sets, costumes and some of the CGI look fantastic. But thats it, they only look fantastic, when put into practical use, you can almost see the $130 million fall down the drain.
I won't bother to go into any more of the movie's "story", since there isn't much more to say. The so called "surprises" are rolled over by explosions so you won't notice them, what happens to Kate Beckansale is simply retarded, and the ending is nothing short of, well, lame. Which, co-incidentally, sums up the entire movie.
All in all, save your money. Do not see this movie. Do not even rent it. Instead, rent out some of the classics like "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" that this movie shameless tries to rip off. They may not be modern, but they are a hell of a lot better then this piece of commercially manufactured dredge.