It starts nice with a black and white homage that at least tries to channel the old Universal feel and Hugh Jackman is charismatic as the leading hero while Kate Beckinsale look sexy in a corset, but that is all the good I can say about this film as the film's true intention is to drown the old monsters with fake looking CGI monster fights. Fake Eastern Europe accents and stupid dialogue make it even more shittier.
I think this is one of the worst things I've ever seen. It falls into the "so-bad-it's-actually-hilarious" category.
The summer after "X2," I don't think you'd find anyone more excited than me to watch Hugh Jackman play a legendary vampire hunter in a big-budget epic. The fact that the resulting film was as jovial and campy as a Roger Moore Bond outing registered as a crushing disappointment. If you can get over that, there's some worthy production design and Stephen Sommers has always known how to orchestrate a bombastic setpiece.
I refused to watch it back when it was released, when I was in high school. But now that it has aged for a decade or more, its shortcomings feel more like campiness and it's actually a little bit of fun - despite having far too long of a runtime and some pretty boring casting.
I'm sure the dailies came in and the execs said, "Wow, this is bad - let's fix it in post." And then the post-f/x came in and they said, "Damn, this is worse - let's market the hell out of it for an opening weekend and then forget we ever made this." And they did.
* Not a recent watch, updating account with films I've previously seen.
Not a good movie, but what a great shot that is in the still.
At least Stephen Sommers' films express an unpretentious love of movies. Van Helsing is a train wreck, but I still give it decent marks, if only for the amazing black and white intro.
Link to a review here - http://mubi.com/lists/the-worst-of-cinema-2013-edition
It was a huge childhood favorite, so yeah, I'm biased. But Sommers' love and respect for the monsters and their histories, the beautiful score, Hugh Jackman's conviction and Richard Roxburgh's glorious, mesmerizing scenery chewing still have me convinced that this is the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" of B-movie horror.
Very visual, and melodramatic 'horror'. Not to be taken seriously by any means, just bloody good fun.
La idea pudo resultar buena: el dr. Van Helsing, tradicional enemigo de Dracula, visto como una especie de James Bond, quien en lugar de trabajar para el servicio secreto britanico y combatir poderosos crimanales, trabaja para la iglesia persiguiendo monstruos. Sin embargo, el impersonal estilo de Stephen Sommers termina por darle en la madre a la idea, reduciendo todo el asunto en un mero ejercicio de pena ajena.