The first fifteen minutes were interesting, particularly the black and white photography with the torch wielding villagers storming Castle Frankenstein. The loony doctor, assisted by an albino-looking Igor, turns out to be working for Dracula. And Dracula wants to use Frankenstein's life restoring process to hatch his own offspring. That's where this movie goes horribly wrong. Dracula and his Bride's children hatch out of these lumpy cocoons and look like gremlins with wings. They are utterly silly. Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) himself is kind of a non-entity, a cross between Indiana Jones and Wolverine, though without the personality. He works for the Vatican to rid the world of evil and that's all we know about him until the end, when we're told who he really is. But by that time you really don't care if he's the friggin tooth fairy. The less said about Kate Beckinsale the better-I have no idea why this woman gets work at all-she sucks and has absolutely no film presence.Every shot is a special effect, becoming so extreme it's as if you're watching an animated movie or a video game. Too much of this becomes incredibly boring because it eliminates all plausibility. Since the human characters can bounce off walls and fall five floors without hurting themselves who cares? Two thirds way through the movie half the audience (6 of them) in the theater got up and left, shaking their heads. And these were teenagers, the target audience!The most irritating special effect is with the vampire brides. When they turn into these harpy-looking creatures they are totally naked yet have no nipples on their breasts and are genitally like Barbie dolls. I suppose if they made them anatomically correct they wouldn't have gotten the PG-13 rating.Sadly, the most expensive horror movie ever made isn't really a horror movie at all, it's an action video game that just happens to have monsters in it. It's also the biggest insult to horror fans ever made. In fact, my greatest wish related to this movie is that writer/director Stephen Sommers be bludgeoned to death with a copy of his script.Sure, this movie cost nearly 200 million dollars to make but a gold plated turd is still a turd.
The first fifteen minutes were interesting, particularly the black and white photography with the torch wielding villagers storming Castle Frankenstein. The loony doctor, assisted by an albino-looking Igor, turns out to be working for Dracula. And Dracula wants to use Frankenstein's life restoring process to hatch his own offspring. That's where this movie goes horribly wrong. Dracula and his Bride's children hatch out of these lumpy cocoons and look like gremlins with wings. They are utterly silly. Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) himself is kind of a non-entity, a cross between Indiana Jones and Wolverine, though without the personality. He works for the Vatican to rid the world of evil and that's all we know about him until the end, when we're told who he really is. But by that time you really don't care if he's the friggin tooth fairy. The less said about Kate Beckinsale the better-I have no idea why this woman gets work at all-she sucks and has absolutely no film presence.Every shot is a special effect, becoming so extreme it's as if you're watching an animated movie or a video game. Too much of this becomes incredibly boring because it eliminates all plausibility. Since the human characters can bounce off walls and fall five floors without hurting themselves who cares? Two thirds way through the movie half the audience (6 of them) in the theater got up and left, shaking their heads. And these were teenagers, the target audience!The most irritating special effect is with the vampire brides. When they turn into these harpy-looking creatures they are totally naked yet have no nipples on their breasts and are genitally like Barbie dolls. I suppose if they made them anatomically correct they wouldn't have gotten the PG-13 rating.Sadly, the most expensive horror movie ever made isn't really a horror movie at all, it's an action video game that just happens to have monsters in it. It's also the biggest insult to horror fans ever made. In fact, my greatest wish related to this movie is that writer/director Stephen Sommers be bludgeoned to death with a copy of his script.Sure, this movie cost nearly 200 million dollars to make but a gold plated turd is still a turd.
