play castlevania instead

Rating: 3/10 (14 February 2005)

The first scene is a campy black-and-white scene involving Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein. I was so confused by this scene; at first I thought it was going to be some kind of movie-within-movie or frame story or something. At the very least, I expected a reveal that would bring reason to the campy acting and unlikely character relationships. It HAD to be intentional. Didn't it?
Apparently not. The next thing I saw was a dead-serious title card reading "ONE YEAR LATER." From that moment, I knew it was going to be a long couple of hours.
Sure enough, this movie is packed shoulder to shoulder, start to finish with actors who, for whatever reason, aren't acting. You've got Hugh Jackman over here, making wry comments and being oh, so clever. You've got this horrendously unmenacing Dracula and his community theater reject wives (who spend more than fifty percent of their on screen time as computer-generated harpies without nipples). You've got dudes transforming from naked werewolves into humans with pants.
The design Van Helsing's character is not bad, but it's a little too close to Vampire Hunter D. The film has but two saving graces, and those are Frankenstein's Monster and....hmmm. Sorry, the film has only one saving grace. And in this particular case, he failed to completely save the movie, so for all we know, the movie has NO saving graces. So reading this paragraph has just been a waste of your time.
The idea of a story that binds Dracula, Igor, Frankenstein's Monster and werewolves is appealing, to be sure. That's why there have been so many video games made on that premise. But we shouldn't judge movies and games by the same standards, and anyone who does needs to be kicked in the face. If they were trying to make Castlevania into a movie, they should have just called it Castlevania: The Movie.