Average CGI, Horrible Acting, Below average movie.

Rating: 3/10 (10 May 2004)

Ribbed Turtleneck Sweater??? WTF!!!!!!
Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) has only one outfit throughout the entire movie. It consists of a leather trenchcoat, leather hat, leather boots, and a grey, ribbed, turtleneck sweater. It looks more like a Berlin clubbing outfit than anything else.
This movie takes place before the 20th century obviously, so how on earth did Van Helsing get his hands on a grey, ribbed, turtleneck sweater before the 1960's! The people behind this movie could have at least TRIED to make the outfit look like it came from over a century ago.....instead of raiding Ricky Martin's closet from 1998.
Moving on (thought I don't want to), the rest of the movie is just below average. Details:

The CGI comes off as just average. The good points are the fusion of CGI on the vampires faces when they open their mouths wide to take bites. Also the CGI artwork of Dracula's brides are also done quite well. The backgrounds are also excellent, but alot of fog effects cover up any mistakes. The bad....Dracula for starters. He looks like he just walked off the set of the Golden Child. Extemely cartoony...just plain bad. The werewolfs also looks cartoony as well. And Dracula's spawn just look like little video game monsters.....too cartoony.

The acting. KILL ME NOW before I here anymore horrible eastern-european accents. The guy who played Dracula was the worst...by far....so cheesy. Hugh Jackman did fine, but his role was limited to the serious action hero and all he had to do was not deliver his lines like Vin Diesel. Kate Beckingsale had the only role that showed a great range of emotion and had the ability to show acting prowess. Unfortunately, with a cheesy accent and forced emotion, she failed at this.
Story....what story? Why was dracula releasing werewolves? Why did Dracula need Frankenstein if had the Doctors equipment? Could Frankenstein have been anymore pointless? Why does Dracula even care to kill off Kate Beckingsale's family? Finally, don't expect any suprises. The movie tries, but every twist can been a half hour before it happens.