Fangs You Vociferously

Rating: 4/10 (13 August 2010)

The infamous blood-sucker from Transylvania (Richard Roxburgh as Count Dracula) has sent up Frankenstein's laboratory in his castle, where he hopes to use the maestro's life-giving expertise to animate his vampire offspring. Since these babies are birthed by Dracula's three vampire brides, they are understandably born dead. For several reasons, this makes God unhappy. The Almighty arranges for vigilante vampire hunter Hugh Jackman (as Gabriel Van Helsing) to stop the supernatural meddling. Helping Mr. Jackson are Dracula's descendants, beautiful Kate Beckinsale (as Anna Valerious) and werewolf brother Will Kemp (as Velkan).
Stephen Sommers' story isn't bad, but the execution drowns it to death. We begin with a black-and-white sequence, which looks more like they turned off the color than attempted to do a creative homage. As the star, Mr. Jackson wears the film's worst hairpiece, hat, and costume - he should have had a talk with somebody. Others are much, much better, with Ms. Beckinsale looking sexy throughout. The fine visual effects (supervised by Ben Snow and Scott Squires) and animation (Daniel Jeannette) are not flattered by a bombastic and overindulgent pace. "Van Helsing" looks like a shoved together collection of highlights from three movies.
**** Van Helsing (5/3/04) Stephen Sommers ~ Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, Will Kemp