Writer-director Stephen Sommers, the man that brought us The Mummy and unfortunately, THE MUMMY RETURNS, now tries to revitalize Universal’s top tier monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolfman.
Whether or not he succeeds is a matter of opinion. (or two)

Who the Hell do you think you are Sommers? You choose not just one classic monster to “reimagine”, but the top three?
And Van Helsing? Didn’t you see Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, you know, the one with Anthony Hopkins as the quintessential ABRAHAM Van Helsing? (What’s this Gabriel shit?)

Hugh Jackman, of course Wolverine from the X-Men movies, is a very different Van Helsing. He’s no brooding, eccentric doctor here. No, here he’s a brooding mercenary, a monster hunter for the Vatican. More is revealed about his character, but I shant reveal it here. I don’t do spoilers.
Van Helsing is sent to Transylvania to try and help a Romanian princess defeat an evil that is plaguing her town. The Romanian princess is played by Kate Beckinsale, who ironically played a vampire herself in UNDERWORLD. They team up to face Dracula, his three Brides, a werewolf (or is two?), and , well, anything else would be telling, wouldn’t it?
Jackman and Beckinsale do a nice job with what they’re given. That’s not much, but yeah, they do a nice job. Richard Roxburgh plays Dracula…

…and no, sorry, Richard Roxburgh is not Dracula! Dracula is one of the most interesting character’s ever created. He’s amazingly powerful, he’s as charming as he is deadly, and he needed to be written better, and portrayed by someone with real screen presence! And what of the Brides? Yeah, they were beautiful some of the time, but what the Hell was up with the cackling, screaming, CGI banshees from Hell?
Between them and the werewolves, it looks like Sommers didn’t learn his lesson from the God awful end of ”The Mummy Returns”.
What a waste of classic characters! Give him an F!

I could only imagine how hard it was to try and come up with a story that involved so many characters. Sommers did his best, and even though some of the dialogue is pretty bad and some of the premise is almost eye rolling-ly bad, I give him credit. Despite myself I found myself entertained for most of the film. I definitely understand some of the negativity I’ve heard regarding Van Helsing, because these are beloved characters that people hold near and dear to their hearts. But if you look at it as a stand alone flick, it’s not thatbad…