Suspend your disbelief!

Rating: 4/10 (30 April 2005)

The only good things about this movie were the atmosphere, the special effects, and the woman that played Van Helsing's love interest.
I was very disappointed at several things this movie offered. While, I liked the way they incorporated more than just Dracula, the fact that the Werewolf was the only thing that could kill him, I didn't like. I also didn't like the way they used religion in the movie to describe Dracula and Van Helsing's roots.
The way the lighting changed rapidly, and after the sunlight was out, the Vampires were still attacking, was stupid. The character chosen to play Dracula was terrible, and he didn't do a very good job acting, either. I expect him to be at least somewhat intimidating. While I was in awe of some of the special effects, they really did hurt this movie. You already have to suspend your sense of disbelief for any monster movie or Dracula story, but you don't expect the normal characters to be more than human. Van Helsing's background was explained and therefore he can be the exception. But the woman, give me a break. She falls from trees, gets thrown out of windows, swings from wires hundreds of feet in the air, dangles from cliffs, yet somehow she manages to always land on her feet; not just on her feet, but on her feet without a scratch. It's very hard to take the movie seriously while this is going on. And then, after surviving all that, a werewolf landing on her, kills her. If she can survive all the other stuff, the werewolf wouldn't have killed her. The acting, aside from Dracula, was not really that bad. And the storyline wasn't terrible either, but in order to enjoy this movie, you have to suspend your disbelief of everything you've ever known or read, not just about monsters, but humanity as well. This could have been a great movie, but ended up being a waste of 2 hours.