Van Helsing | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

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.

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.

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

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

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.