This is Indiana Jones meets Hammer Horror - the relentless action is blended with a knowing undercurrent and dramatic gothic styling.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 8, 2024

The humor, most of which comes from a monk as a comic sidekick, doesnt work here either. It just emphasizes how campy the whole premise really is.

Full Review | Nov 16, 2019

Hugh Jackman stars as the sexiest Van Helsing to ever hit the screen. Even more impressive... is his larger than life screen presence and physicality that keeps his character from becoming overshadowed by the incredible amount of CGI and monster effects

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 3, 2019

It's this relentlessness of the action and technology that make the film more of a simulated ride. I wouldn't have boarded.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 4, 2019

If you're prepared to overlook the canon-messing, plus the odd bit of crap dialogue or dodgy CGI, then Van Helsing is surprisingly enjoyable, with several impressive action set pieces.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 1, 2018

Van Helsing is the epitome of an escapist movie - the kind that used to be shown on Saturday afternoon. But now, thanks to massive budgets and big-name stars, Saturday comes seven days a week.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2018

Despite (or maybe because of) the nonstop action and the special effects, I looked at my watch a lot. This is too long and the script is nothing but segues from one action, special effect-laden, sequence to another.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Nov 1, 2018

What's left is a world of industrial Gothicism, nightmare morphing effects, ahistoric gadgetry and Breughel-lite grotesquerie.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2018

By the final scene, all we care about is when Sommers will wrap up his magic act and let us all go home.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 31, 2018

The results here are eye-dazzling, indeed, but undermined by the screenplay, a comic-book containing every cliche as well as every monster in the genre except Bigfoot and the Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 31, 2018

Thirteen year old boys will love it. Its bound to make lots of money on its opening weekend, and is open-ended enough for a sequel.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 31, 2018

There are a number of good ideas just visible, but they seem to have been edited to death. Where the film needed vision, there is only polite compromise.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 31, 2018

Hugh Jackman may be able to hold his own but not by much. It's not his fault though.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2018

I think Van Helsing is worth seeing on the big screen, if nothing else than for the audience reaction and to see the action and effects in the theater.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2018

Sommers has talent, but no discipline or attention span.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Oct 31, 2018

Van Helsing itself is an unholy mix of exhumed ideas from a generation of monster movies. Unlike the monster, though, it never comes to life.

Full Review | Original Score: 0/4 | Oct 31, 2018

We do not care about anything or anyone, we just thrill to the next special effect.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2018

The exteriors are fantastic, the castles mega-looming, and there's a beautiful -- if fanciful -- masqued ball which shows off to perfection the costumes contrived by Gabriella Pescucci.

Full Review | Jan 9, 2018

If Van Helsing was meant to be a Saturday afternoon matinee fodder, it is both too ponderous to be fun and too silly to be scary.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2017

For me, Stephen Sommers falls in the same category as Renny Harlin. He's one of the best hacks in the business.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 17, 2016