Sounds promising on paper; far less so in execution

Rating: 4/10 (12 October 2014)

Director Stephen Sommers was fresh off the success of The Mummy films, when he apparently had the inspiration to start a new franchise centering on the legendary Van Helsing character. Fanboys everywhere began imagining what older actor would take the part. The announcement then came that hunky Hugh Jackman would play the role of a younger Van Helsing, who would not just hunt vampires but a variety of monsters from the Universal stable. Enthusiasm was through the roof...then the film came out and the end result was like air being let out of a balloon.
Jackman does indeed play Van Helsing, who is an assassin on behalf of the Vatican crossing the globe offing monsters. The film opens with him taking down Mr. Hyde and running afoul of the law. Then he is dispatched to Transylvania to deal with Dracula and his brides that are trying to procreate. This all has something to with Frankenstein's Monster and a werewolf, but if you can figure out how then you are doing better than I am.
The film boasts a strong cast who are often not given anything of worth to do, an array of special effects, and a frenetic pace that will hopefully distract from the fact that the story is an overstuffed mess. The film would have been far more better to have focused on one or two monsters instead of the bunch we have here. We get Dracula and his three brides, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, Mr. Hyde and a villainous Igor (badly played by Kevin O'Connor). Frankenstein is never adequately worked into the plot and the Wolf Man seems an afterthought. Along with these characters, the film also must make room for Kate Beckinsale's sexy tough-as-nails gypsy co-hort and David Wenham as a dorky friar aiding our hero. It is just too much.
It also does not help that the film comes across like a wall of noise. There is never much sense or fun or charm to anything we see. The non-stop visual effects are a real mixed bag. The effects involving Dracula and his brides are fine, but Mr Hyde looks like a cross between Gumby and The Hulk and the werewolf effects are embarrassing. Why is it that 30 years ago we were getting state-of-the-art werewolf effects in The Howling and An American Werewolf in London, but these latest CGI werewolf effects look like crap? Also, the plot never makes it clear why the Vatican forces Van Helsing to work on the wrong side of the law when writs from them would instantaneously give him the cache to do whatever need be done.
Of the cast, Will Kemp as the werewolf and Shuler Hensley as Frankenstein may as well not be in it for all of the focus they get. Roxburgh does little but snarl as Dracula. Wenham has some amusing moments and Beckinsale has never been sexier.
I am a huge Hugh Jackman fan. I have had the privilege to see him in films, on stage and in person, and the man oozes personality and charisma from every pore. In Van Helsing, he is completely underwhelming. He has been handed a role that could have been filled by a stunt man without noticing a difference. Van Helsing as written has no character traits, no humor, no charisma, no history and no presence. He stands unsmiling, with a variety of weapons, and grunts or recites lines in a one-note grizzled tough guy voice. The actor that humanized Wolverine and became a star with X-Men is apparently on vacation here. He does get to do a lot of running, jumping, climbing, falling and swinging. He dons a loincloth in one scene, but alas no nudity to compensate for the absence of anything else.
Much could be forgiven if the film was dumb fun (like The Mummy), but it is not. It is loud, annoying, incoherent, squanders a great leading man and promising supporting cast, contains dreadful werewolf effects and ultimately is little more than a big waste of time.