Gerald Rice 05-10-2004, 10:33 AM
An interesting twist on several old themes, but I have a complaint. Not Dracula killing Victor Frankenstein, not Van Helsing unexplainedly being over 400 years old (with no explanation, by the way), not Frankenstein's monster loving his creator as a father. I was actually okay with all that. Stephen Sommers is a horrible story teller. Half the characters in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns were annoying and I guess he saw no reason to do anything different. Ann Valerious is a constant agitant and deserves to die. She and the people of her village are trying to destroy a werewolf, but when her brother is bitten and tries to attack and kill her, she attacks Van Helsing when he tries to kill him. Now all of a sudden she wants to find a cure. When her brother is captured in man form she tries to untie him, knowing full well he's a wolf. Friar Velkan is the ever present comic relief, equivalent to Jonathan Carnahan in The Mummy. But one comic relief isn't annoying enough, Igor (played by Kevin J. O'Connor who was also annoying in The Mummy as Beni Gabor) must make inane comments as well. On to the plot: Dracula is unkillable. He has been, stabbed, staked, burned, beaten, julienned, frickaseed and baked at 350 for 4 hours. He can also control werewolves. He needs Frankenstein's monster's life energy to bring life to his legions of stillborn children. But it turns out the one thing that can kill him is a werewolf. Now if Dracula is unkillable save for by a werewolf, why keep one around? It just so happens Van Helsing is the one who murdered him 400 years ago and Van Helsing could resist Dracula's control as a werewolf. And you guessed it, Van Helsing gets bitten by a werewolf. Oh, and apparently the moon is always full in Transylvania. Dracula's lair is only accessible by a mirror in Ann Valerious' house. But she has no idea how to get there? And not only that, but Dracula marches his wee-man henchmen, Igor, the monster and tons of equipment through this portal and NOBODY sees them. Don't bother with popcorn, in the end when Ann dies we see her reunited with her family in the clouds. There's all the corn you need as wee see her smiling down, happy she's had her neck broken by a werewolf. The action is steady in this movie and Hugh Jackman is really the only likeable character (and the only one who's accent is halfway believable). It had potential to be a great movie, but Sommers is too stuck on horrible plot devices to put together a good story. Van Helsing will probably make enough millions to warrant a sequel, but I hope Sommers will be working on The Mummy 3 or something when production starts.