Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

TronkyLizard God i hate the cgi in this. It is some of the worst stuff ive seen, comepletely takes me off the mood to see hugh jackman clearly walking on a green screen. What brings me back in? The film doesnt care. And its proud of itself. My god! So damn proud its adorable.Not only that, but the film doesnt take itself seriously at all!! It takes tropes and characters and creates this mish mash that is both generic and yet full of passion and excitement. The main villain is camp incarnate, he gives such a delisiously entertaining ridiculous evil he stole the scene everytime. It just has personality, behind the 2000's aesthetic, generic plot youve seen a hundred times, and cgi that look like playstation 2 graphics, is a soul that just wants u to have fun. Im glad to have given this one a second chance.

Cineanalyst Despite being thinly scripted in parts, overly plotted in others, and CGI bloated, "Van Helsing" might be the best monster-rally movie since the original Universal series, from its initial crossover feature, "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943), to its turn into self-parody beginning with "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948)--although my favorite may be Columbia's "The Return of the Vampire (1943), which, akin to "Van Helsing," is a Dracula Meets Wolf Man monster rally in all but name. Albeit, being the best monster-rally fare since the 1940s or so, which has included the kiddie "The Monster Squad" (1987), the prior-year's summer blockbuster, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003), and a host of B-to-Z-grade pictures, is not a high bar to surpass. In retrospect, "Van Helsing" also plays a bit like a warm up to Universal's subsequent attempts to launch a new Dark Universe, that being "Dracula Untold" (2014) and "The Mummy" (2017), except that the warm up is actually better than the latter results.À la "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," Dracula has an evil plan for Frankenstein's monster, but, once again, werewolves (and, it could be argued, some other dimwits) are trying to thwart him. In an homage to the classic Universal horror films, the opening sequence of "Van Helsing" is in black and white and rehashes Dr. Frankenstein's creation of the monster, complete with a pitchfork mob chasing them to a fiery climax in a windmill. For a while, "Van Helsing" seems rather haphazard in its touching upon other classic monsters, including scenes of Van Helsing fighting Mr. Hyde (who is more like a mix of The Hunchback of Notre Dame--literally that's his location--and, as in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," a weak version of Marvel's the Hulk rather than the character from Stevenson's novella), of some werewolf hunters and of a small village being terrorized by vampires. There's also some stuff with Igor, a gravedigger, vampire brides and baby vampire bats. Probably the biggest problem with the movie is that it spends time with too much clutter while not delving too deep into the characters and storylines that really count.Van Helsing merely retains the name of Stoker's character. Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing is no Dutch doctor, but rather an 1880s James Bond type working for Vatican as a hitman of monsters. The friar Carl stands in for the "Q" character from the Bond films, as he shows Van Helsing the latest in fictional-Victorian-era weapons technology. Strangely, Carl is also more like Stoker's Van Helsing than the actual character by that name in this movie, as he's the one with all of the answers and knowledge related to vampire hunting. Jackman's Van Helsing, on the other hand, at first, wonders why he can't just shoot the Count with his guns. Like Jackman's Wolverine from the X-Men movie series, his Van Helsing is a semi-immortal with memory loss who recklessly rushes into a fight, relies upon the intelligence of others, whether it be a Carl or Charles Xavier, struggles with the risks between heroism and evil capable from his rage-infused superpowers and with the tragic possibilities of his romantic relationship with a female sidekick, whether it be Anna Valerious or Jean Grey.As for this movie's Dracula, I'm fairly satisfied with it. I've been watching a bunch of Dracula-related films since reading the novel, and I'm tired of all of the weak or otherwise lovesick bastardizations of Stoker's titular villain. Stoker's Dracula was pure evil. In the 1931 Universal version, Bela Lugosi added camp to the role. At least, Richard Roxburgh's Dracula evokes some of Stoker and Lugosi's traditions, and he's an especially strong vampire. Whereas Van Helsing is a rehash of Wolverine, I can see a bit of the absurdity of Roxburgh's Duke from "Moulin Rouge!"--which along with the absinthe in the windmill and the visual excess, "Moulin Rouge!" seems to have especially influenced this movie. Mixed with the goofiness throughout from director Stephen Sommers, who had already done likewise in rebooting "The Mummy" series, this one can be fun. The Frankenstein monster, on the other hand, was somewhat of a sympathetic character even in Shelley's book, but he's overly such here. No explanation is given for his eloquent speech, either; even the classic Universal movies, for as much as they departed from the source material, addressed his acquisition of language.The visual effects are well integrated with the the framing and its movement--what is traditionally done with the camera, but which is increasingly being done by computers. Only a few years later than "Van Helsing," five movies that relied heavily upon computers for their imagery, "camera" movement and lighting were seemingly-oxymoronically awarded Oscars for Best Cinematography: "Avatar" (2009), "Inception" (2010), "Hugo" (2011), "Life of Pi" (2012) and "Gravity" (2013). "Van Helsing" is part of a prior generation of combining live action and CGI and camera and digital photography, but at least the "camera" moves some, including following Dracula as he walks up walls (much more casually than the wall crawler of Stoker, by the way) or keeping abreast of the vampires flying in their humanoid-bat forms. Such a sense of the role of the camera in the mix of live action and CGI was lacking from the prior year's monster rally, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," so "Van Helsing" was certainly an improvement upon that, delivering an action movie that's actually visually enthralling.(Mirror Note: Dracula displays his and other vampires' lack of reflections to Anna as he dances with her before a mirror in a vampire ball sequence that somewhat recalls a similar scene in Roman Polanski's "Dance of the Vampires," a.k.a. "The Fearless Vampire Hunters" (1967). A mirror is also used in another scene as a gateway.)

thesar-2 Fun fact: the basic telephone was invented before the events in this film. This led us all to believe Hugh Jackman could have easily phoned his performance in, in-between Wolverine performances. Annnd he did.Please ignore the terrible CGI. And yeah, it's probably the worst you'll ever see. (Why oh why didn't they make this animated????!) The movie, unlike many films, actually gets progressively better.I grew up on "monster movies." In my household, it had to be as G-rated as possible, like the 1930's Universal monsters to the 50s-70s Godzilla films. So, it was kinda nice to rekindle with many of the bigger name Universal monsters here. With the help of a comedic-sidekick, I could make it through to the end.The Film's Title has a past he can't remember and believably, it doesn't really matter. He's just out to rid the Earth of baddies. Apparently, he's never been sent up against the original horror villain, Dracula, so let's make this movie. Oh, and he'll need Underworld, the horror version of Q and Young Frankenstein's clone to take on Bram Stoker's sorta creation of destruction. Honestly, this is good for kids. Really, really young ones. Older ones would scoff at the terrible graphics. It's not a bad movie, per se, it's just so horribly drawn due to the fifty cents spent on the special effects. Too bad...because they're laughably bad and distracting. The movie's harmless, really. It's not superior, but everyone's, well, HEART is in the right place. ***Final thoughts: A friend recommended this to me. I instantly complained on how bad the CGI was on the Werewolves. Literally, I have not seen this movie since theatres 14 years ago and that's all l I could recount. Well, that and that I thought it was just okay. Watching it for only the second time in nearly a decade and a half, I realized, it's not THAT bad of a film and there were FAR WORSE CGI shots than just the werewolf scenes. Oh, and it's more than two hours. Far too long!

Eddie Cantillo Van Helsing (2004) Starring: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, David Wenham, Richard Roxburgh, Shuler Hensley, Elena Anaya, Will Kemp, Kevin J. O'Connor, Alun Armstrong, Silvia Colloca, Josie Maran, Tom Fisher, Samuel West, Robbie Coltrane, and Stephen Fisher Written & Directed By: Stephen Sommers Review ADVENTURE LIVES FOREVER Hello Kiddies your pal the Crypt-Critic here with a tale about a time long ago, a time called the 90s. During this mystical time a group of wonderful folks had the idea of remaking all the classic Universal movie Monsters. This Era brought us gems such as Bram Stokers Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola and two I haven't seen like Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and Wolf with Jack Nicholson. Now it was time for The Mummy to return but instead of making it horror, they turned it an action/adventure extravaganza directed by Stephen Sommers who went on to do the sequel. Both of which made money, it was only a matter of time until Universal would give him there monster properties. Stephen Sommers opted to do a franchise with all of the other monsters with the main focus being on the great and legendary monster hunter of them all VAN HELSING! Famed monster slayer Gabriel Van Helsing is dispatched to Transylvania to assist the last of the Valerious bloodline in defeating Count Dracula. Anna Valerious reveals that Dracula has formed an unholy alliance with Dr. Frankenstein's monster and is hell-bent on exacting a centuries- old curse on her family. This movie is a great big fantastical adventure from start to finish. The movie gives us great performances from Hugh Jackman as Gabriel, if they so happen to go with the original Van Helsing Abraham I think Hugh could pull that off as well if they give him the same great make-up from Logan. Kate Beckinsale is always a plus, if a movie's got Vampires, werewolves and Kate Beckinsale I'll see it because that is my biggest guilty pleasure. Richard Roxburgh is a pretty damn good Dracula, he has one scene that I really like where he's like "No! I have no heart, I feel no love, no fear, no joy, no sorrow, I am hollow and I live forever." The score for this movie is cool it gives off the movies epic adventure vibe. I'm pretty sure this film is inspiration for a new Van Helsing named Liesel Van Helsing, daughter of the original Abraham Van Helsing. They both have a similar attire. The direction from Stephen is great it's sad to know that isn't directing movies anymore if any he should be in charge of the dark universe. The special effects are terrible though, that I will not defend. But I had to much fun with this experience that it just didn't bother me. The wolf-man and designs of Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster also made it less bothersome , I loved the designs of the monsters. The werewolf transformation is also cool and very different from other werewolf films. Van Helsing is the kind of film you don't take seriously, you just grab some popcorn and go on a fantastical adventure with Hugh Jackaman and the sexy, sexy, sexy, sexy and did I mention sexy Kate Beckinsale. I'm giving Van Helsing a five out of five.