"Orlando Bloom, you should not be aloud to act. Legally." Why cant gut-pain hilarious stuff like that make it onto a poster?

Rating: Null/10 (11 May 2004)

You know, from the point of view of 2003, 2004 looked like a historical year didn't it? I mean we had Brad Pitt in the Trojan War, we had the Mummy Man pitching the genius concept of a Hammer "Versus" revival, we had Ridley Scott going all epic on us again(!!!), we had a Gary Oldman Harry Potter movie and we had the curious idea of a Shrek sequel (so absurdly inappropriate we could only assume they had an ace up there sleeve) but this is ofcourse excepting the showstopper and king, Spider-man making a victory lap. What happened?
Lets hope Ridley gets the first good performance out of Orlando and lets hope Harry Potter and Spider-man 2 are as kick-ass as the trailers make out cause early word on Troy is potent, the Shrek sequel sounds like a phony they dont wanna release at all, the Spider-man 2 trailer gives me no reason not to be excited yet they've withdrawn it from competition, and Van Helsing sucks.

Tell me honestly that you weren't drooling when he pitched the idea? Come on, Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man versus a gizmo-ed cross-wielding revision of the first (and coolest sounding) Vampire Hunter? And writer-director Sommers sounded like the man for the job didn't he? In our post-Mummy glow we assumed he knew what to do with it. Alas however it's an affront to logic but Sommers took exactly the same approach with Van Helsing as he did with Mummy 2. But Mummy 2 was pretty good wasn't it, so whats wrong this time? Dear me, where to start?
Firstly, check the cast list Sommers, Brendan Fraser isn't in this one. Without his irresistable goofy wit the one-liners are going to flatten right out. Without his reliable gung-ho approach to everything complimenting that wit, love for the hero is also sliced in half. Without 'it-man' Oded Fehr to back him up there's no co-adventurer we'll swear alliegence to. Without the adorable and hot-as-hell Rachel Wiesz there's no heroin we empathise with and feel aloud to love from afar. And we can't forget Johnathan and Beni, without them what do we have to chuckle at? Who does the hero look all the better beside? What did Van Helsing need?
Well the second I saw that early concept art of Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man I thought Sommers DID know what to do. He was goth-ing it up, I was prepared to sacrifice the humour because I knew it just couldn't sit. I thought Van Helsing would be a convergence of Myths(capital 'M' intended). You can't nintendo it all up and make these beasties as commonplace as vermin. They should have delved into the Myst-rigue inherent and used the sheer value of these legendary characters to come up with a story that we wanted to watch. They could have chopped that $180mil in half, and put a few hundred grand into a powerplay that actually interested us on a cerebral level. So lastly, what does the movie have?
I cant believe he actually dared to use the same junk that not only every other adventure movie used but that his own leading man lived off. Come on, forgotten pasts, dark secrets, soulful quests thats not only Wolverine its the Mummy movies and its wanderer mentality which comes into nearly everything. We've had way too much of that already, he should have given it a miss. Sexy as Beckinsale is she cant be both the quest and the love interest and fellow-adventurer and the victim etc, thats just absurdly uninteresting. And Dracula, oh boy. As big a fan as I am of Ozzie actors penetrating Hollywood I'm afraid my countryman was miscast. Dracula HAS to be very tall and very menacing. We should feel as we did in 1898 when John Harker first encoundered this fogotten King who transcended centuries and fought historical battles (Vlad the Impaler). We should feel like a child that needs permission to leave their bedroom before him. Oldman was a stupid choice in 1990 for the "faithful" adaptation and so was Roxburgh. Short of suggesting who he should have cast I'll leave it at that.

And he cribbed from Godzilla!! I mean for goodness sake, there are some movies that should be completely off-limits for theft, out of pure common decency and what of all the $180mil flops of last 10 decades would top the list? Sommers tried to elevate the events of the movie to transcend Transylvania. He should have instead dwelled on the character that the entire "franchise" depended on.
Listen this could go on for pages but it doesn't need to. Here's hoping that the movie makes enough to warrant a sequel in which they might (but likely cant) improve things. Otherwise, and likely, Jackman is still looking for that much touted Indiana Jones to succeed his Han Solo (Wolverine), but my greatest fear is that this will be the finishing attempt at resurecting the Vampire King. Please, please no.