Where do I start with this colossal mess? Think of it this way: take “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” and ratchet everything wrong with that movie up to 11. There! You made “Van Helsing.”
Hugh Jackman is a tremendously appealing actor, but he’s lost in a brain-searing stew of overbearing special effects. The score is one musical crescendo after another. Like many contemporary action movies, every scene is a climax; there’s absolutely no ebb and flow. When everything matters, nothing matters.
There are lots of other problems with this movie (don’t get me started on Kate Beckinsale’s accent). But for me it comes down to, getting smacked in the face for two hours isn’t fun.
I think the only way to do this story would have been to make it a real low-budget, low-tech spookfest – an indie “Van Helsing.” Don’t spend millions of dollars showing us a man transforming into a werewolf; we’ve seen that a million times, and it hasn’t been impressive since “American Werewolf in London.” And it’s not scary. What is scary, and interesting, is the unknown; the wait to see what will happen. Here, you’re never waiting – something’s always slamming into your skull.
As the brilliant Jonathan Demme proved in “Silence of the Lambs,” what your brain can imagine is 1,000 times scarier and more engaging than what can be put on screen.