Van Helsing

Stephen Sommers, director of the fantastic sleeper hit The Mummy and not so great cash-in hit The Mummy Returns, clearly loves his monsters. But while the original was mostly seen as a hilarious redirection for the famous monster, the second was just a typical summer blockbuster, relying on the fame of the first movie to help it turn in a profit. With Van Helsing, Sommers has pulled a similiar the same trick, except this time he's hired Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man to help sell his latest. On paper, it sounds foolproof - but on the big screen, the trick hasn't worked so well.

Despite a fun and visually impressive opening, and the presence of X-Men's breakout star Hugh Jackman, Van Helsing is nothing more than the usual summer trash with a supposed 'twist' that makes little difference to the film's content. Kate Beckinsale sports a laughable accent as the doomed Anna, but is watchable, wheras Richard Roxburgh (as Dracula) hams it up shamelessly and spoils a character who, despite the bad dialouge, could have been the best thing in the movie. The best performance has to be David Wenham's, who uses the cliches to his advantage and shows great potential as a rising star.


Overall, Van Helsing has some decent action sequences, and Jackman is on good form as usual, but to assure a profit was turned in, and to justify the big budget visual effects, what could have been a great story was turned into a boring blockbuster fiasco. Very disappointing.
**1/2 out of 5.