Fangs,but no fangs

Rating: 1/10 (30 April 2004)

After watching "Van Helsing" I must totally agree with Quentin Tarantino, who recently railed against the ever increasing use of CGI. Stephen Sommers´film is one big CGI-orgy! Plot? Logic? Coherence? Characters? Forget it!!! From the very beginning this film tries to clobber its viewers senselessly with one "highlight" after the other. As the film isn´t actually about anything except endlessly repeated vampire attacks, incomprehensible fights and chases, you don´t care what happens to the "characters";you just sit and stare with growing disbelief at the shoddy effects that don´t fool a five-year old. What was going on in the minds of the people who are responsible for this sorry mess of a film?!Why could Stephen Sommers not make up his mind about the kind of film he wanted to make; a horror film? A comedy? A rousing adventure flick? A touching and tragic love story? It simply doesn´t work to throw in as many of these ingredients as possible into the pot and hope that they somehow melt. Why did nobody raise a hand and utter some kind of objection during the conception and preparation? Do the people who spend huge amounts of money on a project like this really believe this is what today´s cinema goers want? In the end credits Stephen Sommers dedicates the film "in loving memory" to his father. What a strange relationship these two men must have had!!!