Definitely not great, but surely not as bad as some claim

Rating: 5/10 (26 May 2004)

This is a movie about the well-known famed monsters of the 1800's, mainly Dracula, The Wolfman and The Frankenstein Monster. While the original movies, and pretty much every movie about one of these creatures is a horror movie; this is, however, just a comic book movie that features them, and Dracula's nemesis, Van Helsing. It has no horror in it at all; several of the creatures in the film are ridiculed more than they're feared(well, mainly Igor, but at times Frankenstein's Monster too). The movie does do something to pay respect to the source material, but, alas, most of it is lost in special effects. Nearly every scene features some form of special effects; there are more effects in the film than there are action sequences. I don't know any other films by Stephen Sommers, but in this, the action consists of far too much CGI, thereby giving us something to look at, rather than something to be excited about; granted, the CGI does look pretty good, but some "all-live action" action sequences would really have helped. I also found the action scenes to be fairly repetitive. Half of them either start or end with someone being swung by a wire/rope/whatever. That's an OK idea for one or two action scenes, but in this movie, it happens no less than five times. Then it just gets tedious and bland. You start to wonder if the director has too few ideas for how to put together action scenes. It also made me wonder if he had seen too much Tarzan as a child, and wanted to copy him swinging from tree to tree. Most of the action scenes also involve far too much talking, and far too little action. There was a scene were the vampires kept talking on and on for five minutes or so, before finally attacking the victim, whom they had cornered from the beginning of the scene; of course, this only happens to the main characters, anyone else is killed instantly. Which just makes it all the more predictable; quite unfortunate, seeing as how it was seemingly made to create tension and intensity. The action scenes are fairly intense, but the director hardly ever gives us time to breath between them, thereby just annoying the viewer, rather than giving an intense feel to the film. The action, whilst being intense, fails to excite or entertain, which leaves the viewer feeling bored. The talking in the action scenes also usually kill any form of excitement, rather than intensify it. In fact, the film seems to prefer special effects over action; there were several scenes that could have become great action sequences, instead something "unexpected" happens, and we are "treated" with more CGI. They also seemed to love the things they could do with the special effects far too much, resulting in them overusing it to the extreme(main examples being Dracula's walking on walls and werewolves & Mr. Hyde jumping constantly from one place to another, which just annoys and distracts the viewer). The plot is OK, but very far-fetched and only barely makes sense. I got the feeling that the script was written more or less around which plot twists the director wanted(in fact, if I'm not mistaken, Sommers also wrote the script, as well as directing it), and which action/special effects sequences he wanted in the film. The acting is not particularly good, but not bad, either(well, some of it, but most of it is OK). The Monster has the delivery of an opera singer... I wasn't sure if I should laugh at the poor acting, or clap at the notes he hit. The characters seemed too much like clichés; the bad-ass hero who cracks jokes and saves the day, the strong female who can fight for herself, except for when she needs to be rescued by the hero, the slow, goofy sidekick who's only in the film(at all) to provide comic relief, etc. The humor in the film is decent, however there is a little too much of it for a dark film based on horror movies. A few of the jokes did make me laugh, however, the goofy nature of several scenes made me laugh harder. All in all, a decent comic book movie that lacks any of the serious nature of its source material. I recommend this movie to fans of comic book movies, but fans of any/all of the source material should be advised, that this does not pay very much respect to the original stories. Just remember; you were warned. 5/10