So why did I choose this steaming pile as my first review on this page? I don't really know. To be honest, I think I have a thing for just pouncing on easy targets. So... moving on.

I don't know the fiction of Van Helsing. I don't know the history, I don't know where the character first appeared, I don't know how many movies or television shows or books that the character has appeared in. But someone with a lot of money and hollywood connections decided that the character was deep and interesting enough to warrant a feature length film. If there is a God, then I will be seeing this person in the McDonald's drive through throwing ketchup in my to-go bag in the near future.

Why doesn't this movie work? Why, at least doesn't it offer a fun summer film experience in that "Independance Day" kind of way? I don't really know. There are so many reasons that come to mind and I don't think there is enough room to type them all out here.

First off, I got the feeling as if I was watching the movie from a thousand miles away. Everything on the screen seemed to be the same color and, honestly, made me a little depressed. The grays and whites and blacks all meshed together just made me feel like I was at a funeral, and, seeing how badly this movie turned out, I suppose I might as well been.

The cast is respectable, at least. Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman and Kate "The Future Wife" Beckinsale play the leading roles, and this is where all of the 3 points the movie gets come from. Neither of them do a very good job, but this isn't their fault. The script to this turd is so bad I don't think Brando could have saved this one.

There are so many other things... the terrible effects, the deep end that the movie plunges off into in the last half hour of the movie, assuming you could make it that far. I was looking at my watch after an hour of this one.

Bottom line: Skip it. Run... flee the country if you have to. Don't dare see this one. Even if it's free... you will be dumber after seeing it, you will regret and wonder what happened to that 2 hour span of your life.