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Van Helsing Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for non-stop creature action violence and frightening images, and for sensuality) Theater release: May 07, 2004 by Universal Films Directed by: Stephen Sommers Runtime: 2 hours 12 minutes Cast: Hugh Jackman (Van Helsing), Kate Beckinsale (Anna Valerious), Richard Roxburgh (Count Dracula), David Wenham (Carl), Shuler Hensley (Frankenstein's Monster), Elena Anaya (Aleera), Will Kemp (Velkan), Kevin J. O'Connor (Igor) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

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The 2004 summer movie season officially kicks off with the hotly anticipated Van Helsing, the latest from writer/director Stephen Sommers (1999's The Mummy and 2001's The Mummy Returns). Word to the wise—if you know the name Van Helsing, avoid this film. Even if you don't know the name, for that matter, avoid this film.

Van Helsing is the old professor from Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel, Dracula, specializing in exotic diseases and folklore. Memorably played by the likes of Peter Cushing and Anthony Hopkins in previous adaptations of the story, he's part Sherlock Holmes, part sci-fi B-movie scientist. The movie Van Helsing is something of a prequel that intriguingly explores the famed vampire expert's back-story. What was his first encounter with the undead? What was he like in his prime?

In his film, Sommers envisions Van Helsing (X-Men's Hugh Jackman) as a notorious and misunderstood monster hunter ("part priest, part murderer"), employed by a secret society based in the Vatican—spearheaded by the Catholic Church, naturally, yet embracing all religions. Van Helsing returns to headquarters after a botched attempt to bring back the infamous Mr. Hyde (aka Dr. Jekyll) alive from Paris. After gearing up in a blatant plagiarizing of James Bond, he is sent to Trannsylvania with a young friar named Carl (David Wenham) to uncover the plans of a certain Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh, League of Extraordinary Gentleman), and to protect the surviving members of a royal gypsy family, Velkan (Will Kemp) and Anna (Kate Beckinsale of Underworld, a better movie about vampires and werewolves).

Van Helsing's past is shrouded in mystery since he has no memory of it. His earliest recollection is of fighting the Romans at Masada, which would make him at least 1,800 years old. For those who insist on seeing the film, I'll conceal the puzzle of Van Helsing's past and his tie to Count Dracula, though it's a highly unsatisfactory revelation, and the results conflict with the very tale that spawned this mess. Dracula's plans are just as disappointing, but no secret. Unable to produce living offspring with his vampire babes, he wants to use the science behind Frankenstein's monster to bring his brood of little bat-kids to life. Hey Drac, I'm no authority, but it seems like you're doing all right spawning the undead by traditional vampire means.

That's the first of Van Helsing's many transgressions. The movie would have you believe that it's paying loving tribute to the great monster movies of the '30s and '40s. Instead, it completely throws the rules of the mythology out the window. Dracula and his three brides are depicted as winged harpies, able to fly around in the daylight, as long as it's overcast outside. Who knew clouds were so powerful against the supernatural? Anna points out that vampires "don't attack in the daylight … they must have wanted to catch us off guard." Yeah, vampires are sneaky that way. Dracula is also inexplicably invincible to all the conventional means learned from past films.

Equally ridiculous are the rules surrounding werewolves. Transylvania apparently operates under a 3-day lunar cycle, conveniently allowing for a full moon whenever the plot needs one. What's more, if clouds block the light of the full moon, the werewolf reverts back to his human self temporarily. Which begs the question, does this mean we're safe on nights with a full moon if it's raining? If a werewolf needs direct moonlight to change, why does he change indoors?

Van Helsing also doesn't play fair when it comes to the overall action. It's like a small child whose imagination allows him to drive his G.I. Joe tank straight up a cliff wall to shoot a jet flying overhead. Gravity? Laws of physics? Who needs them? One scene has a runaway stagecoach with six stallions leaping at least 50 feet over a chasm like the bus from Speed without any ramp, magical aid, or prompting from their driver—it's quite possibly the stupidest looking stunt I've ever seen. Earlier on, a man changing into a werewolf literally climbs a wall backwards like Spiderman with the palms of his hands. From a castle tower, Van Helsing fires a Batman-styled harpoon gun into a tree miles away.

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