Eerie swelling music. A pounding thunderstorm. "It's alive!" screams Dr. Frankenstein as lightning shatters the air. For a moment, one feels as if she is watching a 1920's style horror film, an effect solidified by director Steven Sommers' choice to shoot this sequence in black and white. Van Helsing tries to open with an homage to classic horror, yet fails miserably, making the audience squirm. Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman, X-Men), wearing an Indiana Jones-like hat, is our mysterious, powerful hero. Slaying storybook terrors, such as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde seems to be his forte. Jackman plays the reluctant, misunderstood killer, whose battle is with evil, even though the world views him as a murderer. Employed by an underground Vatican operation (Oe la James Bond) that send him on missions even Sean Connery would be jealous of, Van Helsing's job is to rid the world of things that go bump in the night. The appropriately named "Gabriel" is sent on his latest task; to eliminate the immortal Dracula (Richard Roxburgh, Moulin Rouge) from a small, fearful, Transylvanian town before Dracula can wipe out the remaining heirs to an ancient, aristocratic family. And of course, the last daughter, Anna (Kate Beckinsale, Pearl Harbor), is sexy, stubborn and strong. A story of this clichd nature requires the hero to fall in love with his rescuee. With a docile monk (David Wenham, Lord of the Rings) in tow, Van Helsing takes his testosterone to Transylvania to save the city, get the girl and discover Dracula's secret.

This typical big-budget extravaganza spent its money wisely on the special effects. In particular, the transformation of Dracula's brides, from seductive temptresses to shrieking vampires is quite impressive. Their faces are stretched fantastically, using some form of CGI, to allow these ladies to bare their pointy teeth and hiss all the louder. The acting leaves a lot to be desired, but one is so immersed in the graphics that the bad line delivery is almost (but not entirely) overlooked. Each fight scene is also carefully constructed with computer graphics, making them interesting to observe. However, the warriors are too one-dimensional for the audience to root for either the "good" guy or the "bad" guy, creating a great disconnect.

The characters in Van Helsing are decidedly bizarre. Anna is a curious woman, landing somewhere between a dominatrix and a drag queen. She desperately wants to dominate something, an impression highlighted by many shots of her standing with her legs splayed, or wielding a heavy weapon, with a grimace upon her face. Van Helsing is attracted to her, yet there is absolutely no chemistry between the pair, making their eventual and expected kiss entirely unromantic. Anna is lonely and the audience should sympathize with her; she has built up defenses to control the immense pain she has suffered. The poor girl lost all her family and is stuck in a depressing, dirty town, with the constant threat of being carried off by a vampire. Yet some of her actions are erratic, leading the audience to be puzzled and slightly annoyed by her behavior.

Dracula, however, seems to be just having fun. Roxburgh tries to make the character somewhat perverted and sexually repressed. This element of his personality does come out during his interactions with his brides and Anna. But overall, Dracula is a typical, power-hungry villain. It seems that, because Roxburgh often plays the villain, he has finally resigned himself to this typecasting, and has decided to enjoy and exploit it.

Van Helsing is occasionally embarrassingly bad to watch. The music is overdone to the point of being hilarious, the plot never seems to end and some of the lines are so cheesy you want to eat them with crackers. This torturous 132-minute film would have benefited from far better editing and a new soundtrack. But seeing as the hot weather is coming, if one wants to escape into air conditioning for a good long time, this film is an excuse to sit in a comfortable seat, sip Diet Coke and bask in the cool air. Just remember to bring a pair of earplugs.