Van Helsing

Writer-director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) continues his plundering of Universal’s 1930s horror movies, turning the avuncular professor from Dracula into Hugh Jackman, leather-coated and glowering like Indiana Jones with an arsenal of gimmicky weapons that would make James Bond drool. The movie manages the seemingly impossible: It’s simultaneously nerve-wracking and stupefyingly dull. Sommers pulled every trick in the computer-generated book, turning out a delirious riot of gothic décor, morphing monsters and action that defies the laws of physics. But he never bothers with a comprehensible plot or interesting characters; even his dialogue sounds like something a fifth-grader would write. By the final scene, all we care about is when Sommers will wrap up his magic act and let us all go home.