More is not always better

Rating: 1/10 (8 May 2004)

Steven Sommers seems to suffer from the delusion that more is always better. Special effects to enhance a scene? Let's do CGI in every shot! Music to set a mood? Let's have a loud, thundering soundtrack that doesn't let up! Use action to create drama? Let's make a film that is nothing more than one long action sequence from start to finish!
Unfortunately for Sommers, "more" comes at the expense of "less"--almost no character development and a poor script with laughably bad dialog, so what we are left with is a crashing bore. In a film, the audience must first care about the characters. Everything else is developed around that--lighting, set design, special effects. In Van Helsing the set design is beautiful, the action is thrilling, the CGI is dazzling, but who cares? This is a film for which you feel nothing, that is hollow inside.
This movie is like a text where EVERYTHING IS TYPED IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS; WHEN EVERYTHING IS EMPHASIZED, THEN NOTHING IS EMPHASIZED. What you are left with is pointless, noisy, frenetic action. The worst film of 2004 without a doubt. I give it 1/10.