Very bad, yet very funny (in a bad way).

Rating: 1/10 (10 November 2004)

Being a big MST3K fan, I enjoyed ridiculing this movie for over 2 hours. The evil Dracula reminded me of Riverdance and his love nest of women obviously enjoyed "acting" to the 10th power. Van Helsing's side kick was dropping bad jokes left & right, but after 45 minutes you just wanted him to die. Van Helsing tried to be cool, and suave he is not! Just watch the scene when he plops his ten-gallon hat on Anna's head and you will know what I mean. The acting was horrible and the director is to blame because some of the cast has a descent track record. For those familiar with the Black Adder episode "Sense & Senility", well its like the cast of this movie had been coached by the Shakespearian actors Mr. Keanrich & Mr. Mossop :)
Watching Van Helsing on DVD was also educational for me. I'm no audio guru, but I now know what bad audio production is! During the few scenes that didn't contain any CG monsters or action, the dialogue would literally fade out when certain sound effects took place (like the 'sheen' of a sword being drawn). I should also mention the horrible over dubs and lip syncs. They were so bad that I felt like I was watching MXC! Cool! :)
The CG had potential in some areas. I enjoyed the 1st werewolf scene and a coupe of shots towards the end when Dracula's little demons were flying about the village, but over all I wasn't impressed considering the talent displayed on other films that required lots of CG. The compositing and camera tracking were weak.
Finally, the music. Just plain awful considering the genre of this film. The score might have worked for a Summer Olympics broadcast back in the 80's, but... Ahhh, forget it.
1 out of 10.