a seriously dopey movie

Rating: 1/10 (10 March 2005)

Taking a very, very dumb page from Sleepy Hollow (in which a famous textual schoolteacher was somehow changed into a cop), van Helsing the occasional vampire killer is now the full-time enforcement arm of the living against all things dead and evil, James Bond c.1889 if you will... If you stir in some of the moribund over-dramatics of Interview with a Vampire you get this frantic, loud, stupid movie.
Things are off to bad start with two unnecessary introductory sequences which eat up twenty minutes at the beginning that serve no purpose except to confirm for viewers that, yes this is the dumb fx movie you have been waiting for. The second of the two involves an absurd Shrek-like Mr Hyde. whom would scarcely fit into Edwardian London as a ten foot tall giant with acromegaly. If a sequel is made, presumably van Helsing will kill a nine-foot tall Lizzie Borden or Jack the Ripper with 4 arms.
The plot is one long bad joke. The beautiful princess Dexatrim (Kate Beckinsale) gets her brother killed and mayhem follows with all the Universal monsters except the Mummy. The euro-trash Dracula is grating and unsexy in everyway. He looks like a slightly uglier, more feminine k.d. Lang and unless you're a goth-nerd, his ponytail is about fifteen years late to offer even an ounce of hipness. The Frankenstein monster is excruciating. It's like he reimagined as a nerd/accountant. The "romance-novel" grade script requires that all the men have long hair.
This is best suited for sugar-impelled viewers for whom the current scene needs to be an overstimulating distraction because the last twenty weren't enough.
The last time this extravaganza was filmed it was called Hudson Hawk. This time it's more excessive. It's too long, too boring, too annoying, way too stupid and simply not enough fun. I know it's just escapism, but I have no need for any movie that makes my brain hurt as much as this.
Note: This decades film-work is being marred (and will be recalled historically as marred) by the tendency of fx film directors to ruin movies by shooting even simple no-fx-required shots with green-screen, because it's cheaper, easier, and they're lazy. Another film revolution will occur when Hollywood realizes when filming a simple shot of a guy with a torch in a field looks really amazing when you just shoot the damn guy in a field.
If you want to smirk while watching a piece of silly, campy crap, rent the grade-Z movie Frankenstein Unbound. "Camp" is when you have ten thousand bucks to make a movie and you let the movie have some fun by acknowleging that. It isn't spending millions on a loud, stupid movie because you lack taste. This movie is an exhausting drag.