AndrewRakich’s review published on Letterboxd:
The main problem with this movie is that there are exactly zero (0) characters who even come close to resembling a normal human being. In Sommers’ first two Mummy pictures, we had Rick the jocky man’s man, Evy the brilliant bookworm, and Jonathan the upper class fuckup — all types of folks who resemble people you might know in real life. In Van Helsing, we have a superhuman monster hunter with amnesia, a Roma princess, and a friar cum alchemist. Like, who am I supposed identify with here? (The answer is Richard Roxborough as a fabulous scenery chewing Dracula, a welcome addition to any film… but still, it’s not quite enough)
Yes, the characters are boring and the plot is unhinged, but Stephen Sommers proves his worth yet again as an action/adventure director, especially with the delightful blocking, which consistently injects energy and fun into every performance driven scene. Dracula and the Brides constantly waking up walls, hanging on stuff and generally defying gravity is such a great creative touch.
The CGI really isn’t as bad as everyone says, but some of it is much more creative than others. This is my favorite werewolf transformation put to film, I’ll die on that hill, but a lot of the vampire effects are just sort of obvious and uninspired.
It’s easy to get lost in the admitted overuse of the digital effects and fail to really appreciate the practical ones, which are all great — the bursts of flame and sparks in Frankenstein’s laboratory, the weird vats of boiling goo, Dracula’s Oompa Loompa minions with their Mad Max costume and freaky deformed faces, all this is spectacular.
Alan Silvestri returns to collaborate with Sommers again after The Mummy Returns with an energetic and memorable adventure score — probably the most consistently great thing about the movie.
I think what would have really made Van Helsing sing is if it took itself a little less seriously. The humor that’s in here (mostly centered around David Wenham’s comic relief) is about as funny as cancer. But there were ample opportunities for broader, more explicitly comedic humor throughout the movie. The Cardinal pressing a button in a Vatican confessional, opening a secret door to a 007 style secret society headquarters is inherently funny, and it’s a little bemusing that this wasn’t played explicitly for laughs — plus Wenham’s friar, basically a Q analogue, is ripe for a Bond spoof scene or two. And though this was made before polyamory was a big thing, I feel like Dracula’s relationship with his brides was ripe for some sort of joke about these insane over the top movie monsters having some mundane domestic argument. Beckinsale’s character’s absurd room full of hundreds of weapons felt like the first half of a Police Squad gag… there were a million other moments I noticed on this rewatch that also seemed like they would benefit from broad humor.
All in all, this is far from the trash pile everyone insists that it is. It’s a fun adventure movie with a lot of energy and heart, and it’s certainly the most entertaining meeting of Universal monsters since the 1940s.
