A visually assiduous but dramatically leaden affair, the first of the summer blockbusters arrives with aggressive pomp but fails to engage on anything much beyond a visceral level. With a plot as thin as a politician's sense of decency, the action - and there is plenty - follows Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman), a renowned monster hunter who gets it into his head, thanks to the Vatican, to rid the world of any threat of evil. Top of his hit list is Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh), the Wolf Man (Will Kemp) and Frankenstein's Monster (Shuler Hensley), all of whom are threatening the sanctity of the free world. Levelling in on the love interest/sidekick duties is Anna (Kate Beckinsale), another individual whose primary urge is the dethronement of evil.
More concerned with loading up on the special effects than with any sort of character development or forming an emotional bond with the audience, Van Helsing fulfils all of the fundamental criteria of a summer action movie without ever threatening to engage on anything beyond a superficial level. As impressive as some of the action is, there's no sense of real urgency about the narrative. The film feels as though it was mashed together, while the acting is always secondary to the ham fisted, dim-witted plot and the sheer propensity of the action sequences.
