For me, the best part of this movie was seeing classic horror stars all come together. Whether it be Dracula, the Wolfman or Frankenstein's Monster, they were all here and all represented so very well.
While this also seems like it would have been a straight up hero vs. villains sort of movie, it wasn't, as Van Helsing himself seemed to be somewhat of the anti-hero. He definitely isn't really liked by anyone except for Carl (who was played by the same guy that played Faramir in the LOTR movies) and Anna (who is played by the lovely Kate Beckinsale).
I had doubts about seeing Hugh Jackman in this lead role simply because I couldn't picture him as playing anyone other than Wolverine. In fact, I've never seen him in any role other than the X-Men character, and I thought up until this point it would be somewhat wrong to see him play anything else. Well, I was wrong. Hugh Jackman is a great actor and he works especially well with action films. He plays the role of Van Helsing so to a T, that I nearly forgot he ever was Wolverine. And if Harrison Ford can be Indiana Jones and Han Solo, clearly Hugh Jackman can be Wolverine and Van Helsing (two better characters, in my opinion).
Everything about this movie was big and great. I think that some cynics will say that this movie was bad, and in some ways, the older horror films are better if it's only because of the effects that were made before computers. But for a modern sort of horror movie, this was great and it spared no expense in terms of special effects and what could be done. But most importantly, it did things that even though they were not real, they made you believe that they were real. When you can tell something is an obvious special effect, it's not as fun to watch. But Van Helsing had me believing every second and that was a lot of fun.
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