Review of Van Helsing

Van Helsing (2004)
4/10
Ridiculous action, plot and dialog
1 September 2010
I can only imagine that this is one of those movies where people stood around an espresso machine gushing about how "outrageous" they could make the various scenes/characters and that's what got into the movie. Throw plausibility, logic, consistency and everything else out the window. I can't get started on examples because there really aren't words to explain how ridiculous the action is and this review would get bigger than it deserves to be. There was a very definite Batman & Robin/Schumaker vibe to this for me.

CGI characters duking it out for the last fight is always a bad thing (see Mortal Kombat II, also, or rather do not see that) unless it's a James Cameron movie.

The cast was good but they had NOTHING to work with. There were a couple lines where I could see the actors deadpanning and almost subvocalizing "this will be cut" but the lines staid in amongst frenetic scene shifts to keep us from dwelling. I can only imagine what did get cut. If there's a bonus real with the cast cursing out the director or the writer (Sommers) I'd pay to see it.

The F/X budget was there (I think). The setting and costumes all could have been interesting although I felt sorry for Beckinsale.

This movie made all three Underworld movies look like understated masterworks.

It's not even good for kids to see because they might get ideas about stupid things to try.
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