Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) travels to Transylvania to defeat Dracula (Richard Roxburgh). He joins up with Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), whose family has fought Dracula for centuries, and they find themselves surrounded by vampires, werewolves, the Frankenstein Monster (Shuler Hensley), and assorted other evils.
What do you get when you combine exceptionally skilled filmmakers, a lot of money, and a complete lack of artistry? Yes, it’s Van Helsing, one of the most beautifully filmed bits of drivel you’re likely to come upon. This is filmmaking under the command of an excited ten-year-old.
“Yeah, yeah, lots of monster together. So cool! How about Hugh Jackman, he’s cool. He’ll be cool with a hat. What’s his character? He’s a guy with a cool hat! And that girl in vinyl from Underworld, she’s purrrdy. If we put her in, she can wear corsets so we can see the tops of her boobies. Acting? We’re talking about her boobies here! Back to the monsters, let’s have Dracula. He’s great! So the guy we’ve got to play him sounds like The Count on Sesame Street with more whining, but he’s got a cape, so it’s all OK. We’ll put in Frankenstein. Yeah, the monster, though we can toss in the doctor too. And whenever the monster is on screen, he can yell his lines and lumber about. So cool! And I love Saturday morning cartoons, so let’s toss in some cartoon werewolves. It will be so cool! Plot? Plot? Hey, we’ve got all these monsters and they can meet up a bunch with the guy with the hat and the boobies girl. What more plot do you want?”
So, why do I give Van Helsing 
? It has wooden acting and over-acting, plot holes far larger than the plot, characters behaving in moronic ways, and no theme. So why? Because there’s a bit of that ten-year-old in me, who still thinks it’s cool to have Dracula and Frankenstein and the Wolf Man together, and loves to see the running and fighting, and who wants to see the cleavage of Ms. Beckinsale’s boobies.