Like 'Nighmare Creatures', only crappy. - SPOILERS

Rating: 1/10 (19 November 2004)

The advertising/marketing of this movie is what eventually reeled me in to finally rent this movie on DVD. The movie looked like it would be slick enough, and have some cool monster action, reminding me a lot of the video game 'Nightmare Creatures'. The difference is is that Nightmare creatures is good. But anyway, wow, after seeing this movie, i see that Hollywood never ceases to keep getting cheesier and cheesier. They have reached a new low in all areas, especially in the form of writing horrible scripts, and the (horrible) use of CGI. I simply cannot put into words how atrocious the cgi in this movie is.
It is so bad that it ruined the entire movie for me. One of the most laughable effects would have to be Frankenstein's monsters' brain, which glows like one of those static balls you can buy in almost any store (the kind you can put your finger on and the static follows it). I can't believe they used CGI for that, i could've bought a static ball, stuffed it into the back of a prosthetic head and achieved a better result. All of the cgi is just horrible, all of the monsters were laughable except for Frankenstein's monster, he was overall kinda cool because he was not CGI and his acting was decent. I hate CGI, but not for what it is, but how Hollywood uses it. They simply do not know what they are doing. The creatures in this movie would have benefited greatly from being physically built. There is never a 'scary' or tense moment in this because of the Scooby Doo movie CGI looking creatures. The flying creatures might as well have been tossing Scooby snacks to the villagers below them. I've seen plenty of bad movies, but this one is bad all around. Bad acting (mostly), HORRIBLE special effects, crappy script, and the movie is way too long for what it is. It tries it's best to be 'epic', but fails miserably.
I have nothing against long movies, as long as they are actually good. This one would have been better off shorter. Fortunately, i wasn't unlucky enough to have seen this in the theater. However a friend of mine has and now i too feel his pain. I'm tired of having my intelligence insulted by going to the theater and always seeing garbage movies. I hear people comment about movies such as this as being 'fun' movies and not to expect much. Well, i am the consumer and i sure as Helsing should be getting more for my money than this crap. And the reason Hollywood keeps churning out this crap is because millions of people keep allowing it by giving them money.
If people would boycott theaters for awhile, Hollywood would try harder. I wanted to like Van Helsing, but, i simply really cannot. I'm kinda depressed now after seeing this heap. But i should've known better, in the days of almost always crappy CGI, and Hollywood being so unoriginal that they actually have to remake movies. In closing, Van Helsing is one of the worst movies i have seen in a while, and it's right up there with Wendigo and House of the dead.
So, unless you enjoy video game(borderline cartoon) graphics as the main attraction in movies, glowing static ball monster of frankenstein brains, stay away from this. If you want some cool monster hunting action, play Nightmare Creatures instead. Hollywood, you need to at least try to polish your turds a little more..because the corn is still showing. I just wasted 2 hours of my life watching this 'movie'. My vote: 1 out of 10.