'VAN HELSING': SAVE YOUR CURSING.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

AN IMPRESSIVE act of overcompensation, ``Van Helsing'' might have saved its makers a lot of money and effort if it had only been a little bit scary.

Writer-director Stephen Sommers at least makes up for the crucial lack of chills with massive deployment of special effects, nearly nonstop action, obsessively Gothic production design and all the monsters there are in ... well, not heaven.

It's also a 19th-century James Bond/Indiana Jones rip-off, just to make sure no potential boredom creeps into the proceedings. Of course, Sommers' break-neck approach to genre mishmash also prevents any chance of atmosphere or true dread to get a clawhold. Those qualities were what made the Universal monster movies of the 1930s, which ``Van Helsing'' so gleefully pilfers and pillages, the classics that they still are.

Now would be the point at which we're expected to pillory Sommers for trashing the sacredly profane legacy of Karloff and Lugosi, like he did with those shrieking, video-game aesthetic ``Mummy'' movies a few years back. But I'm not going there. Yes, all of Sommers' vulgarian wrongheadedness is evident in ``Van Helsing,'' but this movie also possesses a film buff's respect for its frightening (and, let us admit it, often creaky) forebears.

``Van Helsing'' lovingly re-imagines scenes from the Universal classics, especially in its magnificent, black-and-white opening sequence (the cinematographer is frequent Spielberg collaborator Allen Daviau). Sometimes this is done with intentionally campy humor. It's another hallmark of the James Whale and Tod Browning-directed originals, before the studio let Abbott and Costello really trash the franchises. This is especially evident whenever hunchback Igor (Kevin J. O'Connor) is on screen.

That's about it for grace notes. Women will surely appreciate the baser pleasures of Hugh Jackman's title hero going shirtless as much as men will marvel at the way his partner in creature-capping, Kate Beckinsale's Anna Valerious, can run, jump and otherwise jiggle in an hourglassing corset of fiendish severity.

A younger, more dashing version of Bram Stoker's creation, Jackman's Van Helsing works for a secret, interreligious evil-fighting organization that operates out of Vatican catacombs. We first encounter him dispatching a CG-enhanced Mr. Hyde (not a good sign; last year's execrable ``League of Extraordinary Gentleman'' had the same thing) at Paris' Notre Dame cathedral.

Such antics have made Van Helsing a wanted man throughout Europe. And there is some indication he'd like to get out of the freak-hunting game. But, y'see, he can't remember where he comes from, and maybe this line of work could provide a clue ...

Anyway, with Q-like weapon inventor Friar Carl (David Wenham) in tow, he heads for the Transylvanian Alps. There Dracula (Richard Roxburgh, who was in - yikes! - ``League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'') is trying to use Dr. Frankenstein's technology to bring to life the swarm of inert children he's fathered with his batlike brides (Elena Anaya, Silvia Colloca and Josie Maran). Just to update things up a little, the vampfants gestate in oozy, ``Alien''-like cocoons.

Van Helsing teams up with the laughably accented Anna. Her family has been battling evil locally for generations, but that's complicated now by her brother Velkan (English ballet star Will Kemp) turning into a werewolf. Meanwhile, everyone wonders where Frankenstein's monster (Shuler Hensley) has gotten to, or which side he'll take once he's found.

There are gadgets, transformations and swinging around on conveniently placed wires galore. Things fly and things fall into raging rivers with clockwork regularity. Everybody has issues, which is an interesting touch, but nobody builds compelling characterizations around them, which isn't interesting at all. The sound mix is very good and hearing-damaging loud.

So, entertainment or punishment? ``Van Helsing'' is equal parts both. That's Hollywood horror in the 21st century for you. If you'd rather just get scared, stay home and watch the news.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

VAN HELSING - Three stars

(PG-13: violence, language)

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Shuler Hensley, Will Kemp, Kevin J. O'Connor, Elena Anaya.

Director: Stephen Sommers.

Running time: 2 hr. 11 min.

Playing: Wide release.

In a nutshell: Fun, if not exactly scary, horror adventure in which Jackman's vampire slayer takes on Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman as well as Dracula and his brides.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Kate Beckinsale, whose brother is - bad luck - the Wolfman, joins forces with monster hunter Hugh Jackman in the propulsive action flick ``Van Helsing.''