Typical summer blockbuster with colossal budget and numerous flaws

Rating: 6/10 (7 May 2004)

I have seen Van Helsing today in premiere screening and I have found this movie just okay, but I never expect too much from most of summer blockbusters. If you really want to enjoy this summer flick you should leave your brains at home and don't think about acting, plot holes, logical mistakes and other such things. Visual and sound effects were very good, while fight scenes looked pretty dynamic and well made. Computer-generated creatures were exciting and looked almost real. But leave the technical part and computer-generated visuals alone and let's face the most problem parts: the script and acting. Sometimes I have a terrible feeling that something's going wrong with Hollywood screenwriters. Most of recent movies I have seen had so lame script and Van Helsing don't make an exception. You can find here all typical flaws: bad character development, very weak supporting characters, weak and silly dialogs as well as lack of ordinary logic. You know that acting is the weakest point of such high-budgeted summer movies, so don't expect anything great here. Hugh Jackman, who was very good in X-2, this time showed inability to carry movie alone. Cate Beckinsale was miserable as lead female character. Richard Roxburgh as a main villain was too wooden and unemotional. David Wenham (guy who played Faramir in LoTR) definitely deserved something better than such pitiful and mostly unfunny part of superhero's friend and assistant. It looks like they were trying to create character of some kind of cool but awkward guy (like Jonathan in Mummy and Mummy Returns) but they were also wrong here. But despite all numerous flaws nevertheless it's entertained and even enjoyable movie, mostly because it never pretended to be a serious movie. And because of that reason I think it don't worse than much more successful Spider-man 2 and I, Robot which pretended to be something more solid and easily failed there. Overall, Van Helsing is average summer blockbuster, that is worth for watching once but don't expect anything great and memorable here. For Stephen Sommers this movie is another step down after his much more entertained and pleasant Mummy movies.
My grade 5.9 out of 10