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Reel To Reel:
Van Helsing

How It Rates: **
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Horror Violence

Preconceived Notions: Just what we need, another Underworld.
The Bottom Line: Lucent, loud, long, lame.

Van Helsing draws from classic source material. But alas, the filmmakers translated it onto screen as a celluloid haunted house, with shallow story and character development. The plot merely functions as a device to transport us from one CGI action scene to the next, where five will get you ten some window will be broken and somebody is going to be screaming. Pella employees will quake in their seats.

All you really need to know is that the movie centers around famous monster-hunter Van Helsing (Jackman), who's sent to Transylvania to kill Count Dracula. Maybe we should say Helsing... Van Helsing, because you can see a number of rip-offs from the James Bond series. There's a sexy sidekick, Anna Valerious (Beckinsale), who apparently moonlights as a dominatrix when she's not battling evil. And there's a "Q," too, a weapons-guru monk -- excuse me, friar -- who's along for the ride with his incendiary toys. Even Dracula reminds me of the Bond villians, always talking, talking, talking about world domination instead of just dominating. And I challenge you to spot the scene which reminded me of the movie poster of For Your Eyes Only.

Van Helsing suffers from many of the same flaws as last year's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Too much action, not enough coherence. We are presented with a host of characters we don't care enough about, except maybe Frankenstein, because he's such a loveable old monster. Just as we're starting to see some semblence of depth, another effects scene hits us over the head and we're back to page one. Even the characters seem lost in their own movie. They are talking, but I wonder if their lines are coming from a script or from their hearts. And there's a host of peasants with sickles and hammers who have nothing better to do than to hate strangers and serve as lunch for growing vampires (or nookie for the friar, but I digress).

This film could've been a lot better, a la Hellboy. But somebody down the line decided effects were the way to go. Van Helsing comes with a $160 million price tag, and you can see the money on the screen... if some flying vampire doesn't pick it up and crash through a window with it.

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