I don't know why I bother going to the movie theater anymore.

[Guaranteed]

I saw Van Helsing last night. What a bunch of tripe. I might as well have burned 15 one-dollar bills out in the parking lot- it would have been far more entertaining and I would have saved two hours of my life.

I wonder: could the director of Van Helsing have been deliberately trying to make a bad movie? At times, it seemed like satire, it was so horrible. I mean, this guy went all out- if you are looking for a bad movie, this thing has nearly everything you want. It had a swiss-cheese storyline; recycled, shallow characters complete with hysterically ridiculous Eastern European accents, and horrible acting, in general; cliche scriptwriting; literally unbelievable and truly unexciting action; generic slapstick and one-liners sprinkled far, and I mean FAR, too often through the movie in an attempt at comic relief. The only thing missing was gratuitous nudity (although there was plenty of cleavage), which would have actually improved the quality of the film.

This movie was so bad that I burst out laughing during the movie's mandatory "death scene", as I was reminded of the Chappelle Show line "Permission to die, Sarge!" The person next to me probably thought I was some kind of sicko- but, hey, she was the one actually enjoying that piece of garbage. Yes, even the audience of this movie sucked: a bunch of teenagers with the sophistication to laugh at a guy falling backward over a couch. Ha ha, gets ya every time!

If I had to sum up this movie with one word, it would be "loud." Sure, the dialogue may have sucked, but there was plenty of it, as far as the decibel-level was concerned, along with your run of the mill catastrophic explosions, disgusting ecto-plasmic gurgling noises, vampiric screeching and roaring werewolves. There were no babbling brooks in this movie, oh no. It was Niagara Falls or nothin'. The volume was up so loud that I thought my head was going to explode. Of course the reason they did that was to keep half of the audience from falling asleep.

Anyway, don't see this movie. My girlfriend wanted to see it, just because she's obsessed with vampires, but even she didn't like it. Save your money and time, and if you're still curious wait for it to come out on video.