Lots of flash and not much plot don't necessarily make a bad movie.

Rating: Null/10 (9 May 2004)

Director Stephen Sommers has always turned out unique movie gems, so I was looking forward to Van Helsing when I went to see it this weekend. I had read some bad reviews for it and didn't have high hopes, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Van Helsing is possibly one of the most beautiful movies visually that I have ever seen. The special effects are wonderful, executed with finesse and talent. Sommers' vision of the creatures he has chosen to use in the movie makes them fresh, rather than the same tired old thing. All of the scenery is amazing, and I love the black and white sequence in the beginning that is a throwback to old horror movies. The camera angles and cinematography show that this crew knows their way around a movie set, and that's enjoyable.
The same can be said for Van Helsing's stunts. This movie is chock full of action, and the sequences are different each time and very charged. I jumped a few times out of surprise, and that doesn't happen very often. With lots of different locales for the fights, you get a variety of techniques and skills, and the fight scenes aren't so short that you find yourself disgusted at the character being invincible, but not so long that you're looking at your watch waiting for it to be over. Each character also gets equal pieces of the action, so it's not all Hugh Jackman running around beating people up.
The movie is very well-cast. Jackman plays an excellent hunter of evil, with just the right amount of spunk for a man in his position. Dracula is appropriately devious and cunning, with even bigger schemes than Bram Stoker imagined for him. The surprise fun character is Carl, the equivalent of 007's Q. He makes all the gadgets and is the brains of the operation, even managing to throw a few punches himself. Kate Beckinsale (who I admire for not passing out in that tight costume) is much better as a spirited princess than the brooding vampire she played in Underworld, and proves that she can tackle the fantasy genre successfully.
The one disappointment I had with this movie was that it has very little plot. I was left at the end wanting to know more about Van Helsing, where he came from, and why he ended up the way he did. To be fair, Stephen Sommers may be planning a sequel, but it is confusing when you don't have a lot of information at the end of the movie, because the Dracula mythology is wonderfully woven and detailed. I'm interested to see if there is more to this franchise than just the first movie, as there was with Sommers' hits (and movies I loved) The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.
Overall, this movie gets an 8 out of 10 from me, and I'm interested to see where it could go in the future.