so-so action film

Rating: 5/10 (22 July 2005)

"Van Helsing" is a campy, tongue-in-cheek homage to the three key figures of classic movie horror - Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man - and those who do them battle. Hugh Jackman is the mysterious Van Helsing, a centuries-old monster-slayer who works sub rosa for the Catholic Church in its ongoing battle with the forces of evil. In this tale, Van Helsing is sent off to Transylvania to destroy the famed Count Dracula, a vampire who's been rampaging through the countryside for more than four hundred years now, making life miserable for the inhabitants therein.
Written and directed by Stephen Sommers, "Van Helsing" is a sometimes entertaining, sometimes half-baked adventure tale, beautiful to look at but largely devoid of any real suspense or excitement. The action scenes are overwrought and redundant, filled with computer-generated special effects that are surprisingly second-rate in nature. However, the art direction and set design do an outstanding job creating a Transylvania that plays upon our memories of those Universal classics from the 1930's. Moreover, David Wenham serves as an effective cowardly/comic Sancho Panza-type sidekick for the more staid and conventionally heroic Van Helsing, who suffers pangs of remorse when he is forced to destroy the monsters.
The final battle scene between Van Helsing and Dracula does drag on for a minor eternity, but the movie, overall, should satisfy rabid fans of the action film genre. The rest of us can find intermittent entertainment gawking at the scene.