Van Helsing - Good, but somehow not as great as it should be

`Van Helsing' has always been a bit of an enigma to me. I own it and have watched it every so often and I can never quite put my finger on what exactly is wrong with it. Obviously, I quite like it, but it always leaves me with the feeling that it should have - somehow - been so much better.

The film was practically made for me - I love Hugh Jackman and he makes a great `monster hunter.' Kate Beckinsale is naturally sexy as his kick-a$$ love interest. David Wenham adds some comic relief as Van Helsing and Richard Roxborough is brilliantly campy as Count Dracula. Then there are more monsters crammed into this film than Jabba the Hutt's palace. What more could I want?

Um, I don't exactly know, but I'm not alone in my confusion. Van Helsing was supposed to be the start of some sort of action/horror franchise. It was certainly given the budget and star-power to launch such a venture. However, it was - almost - a financial flop. It was sort of successful, but not enough to get a proper sequel (there is a lower budget animated one, but that wasn't the original intention).

Perhaps it's the overuse of CGI? Sometimes everything on screen starts to blur into one mass of animation. Perhaps it's that the characters are a little too indestructible to be believable. Seriously... these (supposedly totally human) characters get dropped from great heights again and again and just get up like nothing has happened - a minor gripe, but it always bugged me.

If you're a fan of `old school' horror, i.e. you know about the Dracula/Frankenstein myths then you might like this, because it certainly pays homage to the classics. It has a lot of charm (kudos to Frankenstein's monster and Drac himself), but somehow falls slightly short of being the modern day classic it was meant to be.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that