Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2004
- Television is not that bad, ah?

When you think Van Helsing, think The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. Writer-Director Stephen Sommers who helmed The Mummy movies and writes and directs Van Helsing hasn’t outgrown the sense of grandiose special effects, sophisticated as they may seem, and throwback to better horror films of the 30s and 40s to bring us this latest version of horror mythologies packaged as a horror cum action adventure movie which should sell plenty of popcorn and keep box office observers busy.

Bound for impressive first weekend box office business, Van Helsing invigorates the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolfman characters for a special effects laden movie that replaces the mystique of those monsters from their black and white filmed hey days, and more complicated novel origins, for bland and one-dimensional characterisations and a wooden treatment of good verses evil.

In Van Helsing, Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) is the primitive out-and-out evil predator of a village in Transylvania. He has eliminated the family line of the only female survivor of the family, Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsdale), out of a long history of family feuding with the Count. Enter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman), a vampire slayer, with his trusty assistant, a friar played for comic relief by David Wenham, assigned by the Vatican to undertake the mission to protect Valerious and remove Dracula.

What ensues is the forgettable digestion of chaotic and rampant images flung together that have no effect but to titillate. This is not spectacular nor does it have the drama and involving plotline to hold audiences, unless you’ve somehow become mesmerised by the images which, I suspect, is possible particularly for the demographic this should appeal to most: older boys. Except the images are not all that interesting. Female vampires flying through the air, attacking innocent victims, and gnashing their teeth, seething through those intricately filmed fanged regions, becomes monotonous, and so do repetitive poses of the evil Dracula stirring up his brides for wicked action. Coupled with sore-eye visual lack of reticence, excessive is not equal to good solid adventure even if this pretends not to take itself seriously.

Hugh Jackman is effectively intense in X-Men, a comic book hero with layers, yet as Van Helsing Jackman gets corny one-liners and performs his much anticipated hero like a plank of wood. For the title of the movie and for so much advertising hype on radio and magazines around this central figure – a Marlboro Man who disempowers the demon and vampire foe – Van Helsing is just plain dull and mono. Token gestures to his vulnerabilities to add complexity is merely sugar on the corn flakes. It’s sweet, but doesn’t last.

There is the odd enjoyable moment and one of the opening scenes is genuinely entertaining, where Van Helsing confronts an impressively designed and beefed up special effects proportioned Mr Hyde, voiced by Robbie Coltrane.

When comparisons are made about Stephen Sommers’ movies, The Mummy series and Van Helsing, to yesteryear adventure flicks the point is mute. The Mummy and its ilk may use the base material of superior stories but they don’t have the sophistication of Raiders of the Lost Ark or the suspense, presence and aura of a Bela Lugosi, or the imploding presence of Boris Karloff in 1932’s The Mummy.