Van Helsing (2004)

Stephen Sommers, what the hell have you done to my monsters? Sommers, the director of the 1999 redo of "The Mummy" and it's overhyped sequel, gives us a similar action/adventure yarn that's basically on par with his CGI laden Mummy movies of the past several years. The Van Helsing in this picture is not your grandpa's Van Helsing by a long shot. Here, Aussie actor Hugh Jackman plays a younger, hipper vampire slayer employed by the Catholic Church to kill off evil in all it's various forms, from warlocks and goblins to Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster and even one Dr. Jekyll in the films opening montage. Dracula is hoping to use the Wolf Man and the Monster for his own evil purpose, which I think had something to do with Drac raising a family of baby vampires ...or something along those muddled lines.

Story and character development take a huge backseat to the films main star, special effects. The entire film consists of one huge action sequence after another in scenes that are so big and over the top they very well could have been the climax in any other film. The problem here is that in between the scenes of jaw dropping effects there is literally no character/story development whatsoever. You'll get ten minutes of story, then "BAM" special effects out the ass, then ten minutes of story, then "BAM" again. The sad thing here is the entire visual overload aspect really does nothing more than deaden the viewer throughout, as it sure wasn't keeping me on the edge of my seat. It's just way to much, almost as if Sommers is trying to distract you from realizing that besides all the abundant CGI, there's really not much else going on.

As for the monsters themselves, well, any fan of the old Universal flicks has to be fairly pissed. You get a Dracula who looks like a junior high English teacher, a CGI wolf man that looks like it came straight out of a video game, and a Frankenstein monster that is perhaps easily the worst, not to mention the most annoying, version of the creature to ever grace the screen. The only plus this one had going for it was the simply incredible set and costume design, and for 150 million dollars, it had damn well be better be. 150 Million dollars...jesus, what a fucking waste. "Van Helsing" is the perfect example of the typical over-hyped "summer blockbuster" that mainstream audiences seem to love, and I'll tell you exactly fucking why. There's no story, there's no character development, there's big explosions every couple minutes to wake the masses up, and yes, dare I say it, you even get a wisecracking sidekick to Van Helsing. Fuck it. Your ten-year old may get a kick out of it, or perhaps you as well, if you possess the intellect of one.