By Special to the Daily Press
As films about bloodsuckers go, this one kinda sucks. For $150 million, Universal got themselves oodles of noodle-nuking special effects, a bloated score and a couple of fetching movie stars in Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale. But one thing’s for sure, they didn’t get much of a script, and all the high-tech illusion money can buy is still no substitute for good storytelling. Writer-director Stephen Sommers, who has fattened the studio’s coffers with “The Mummy” and its progeny, was given carte blanche to realize his latest fantastic vision — a showdown between the legendary vampire-hunter Van Helsing and a trio of iconic monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein and The Werewolf. The result is the most extortionate B-movie ever produced; a ghoulish goulash of CGI overkill peppered with stilted dialogue and a host of historical inconsistencies. Most objectionably, Sommers takes extreme liberties with classic characters millions of moviegoers hold sacred. In the hopes of staving off criticism of these offenses, the studio’s publicity department did something highly unusual — dispatching letters to critics asking us to refrain from revealing certain plot developments. “We believe the audience will thank you,” the note concludes. We’ll see about that.
Jackman, in the titular role, cuts a dashing figure, but bears little resemblance to the gray-haired gent who stalks Dracula in the novel by Bram Stoker. A cross between Indiana Jones and the Outlaw Josey Wales, he’s charged with eradicating supernatural villains by a clandestine order of clerics operating out of a high-tech lab beneath the Vatican. Van Helsing is equipped with an arsenal of high-tech gadgetry — who knew high-powered assault weapons and smart bombs existed in 19th Century? — by a pusillanimous friar named Carl (David Wenham) who accompanies him to Transylvania for a showdown with the terrible triumvirate. There VH hooks up with Anna Valerious (Beckinsale), the sole survivor of a royal family that has been trying to slay Dracula for centuries in order to lift a mysterious curse. Anna looks great in her tight leather corset and, despite being a mere mortal, is unchecked by the laws of physics that govern the rest of us. Not only does Anna fly through the air with the greatest of ease, and regularly get tossed through stone walls with nary a hair out of place, she’s an ace at keeping a straight face while delivering cornball one-liners. Speaking of unexplained supernatural powers, our leading man’s apparently been alive for a few hundred years and he’s holding up better than Dick Clarke. I could go on about the movie’s dippy denouement, but — in deference to the studio – I’ll leave at this: Frankenstein, as played by Shuler Hensley, might be the unintentionally funniest film character of all time. Where was this guy when they were casting “Young Frankenstein”? (Rated PG-13 for nonstop creature action violence and frightening images, and for sensuality. Running time: 132 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 7, 2004. Read the original PDF.