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BloodRayne
2006 - R - 95 Mins.
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| Director: Uwe Boll | | Producer: Dan Clarke, Shawn Williamson and Uwe Boll | | Written By: Guinevere Turner | | Starring: Kristanna Loken, Michelle Rodriguez, Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen and Matthew Davis |
| Review by: Bill King |
| Official Site: www.bloodrayne-themovie.com/ |
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The Terminatrix is back to hunt vampires.
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Uwe Boll's movies are not movies in any artistic sense, but instead are business deals designed to exploit a loophole in the German tax code. The investors make tax-deductible contributions to Boll's projects for the write off's.* Why is the financing important? It's necessary to understand the madness behind Boll's films if one is to understand why anyone out there would back these abominations in the first place.
Good movies can be made using this model, but Boll has no desire to make a good movie. I've read that if his movies are bombs, then his investors earn more money. I'm unfamiliar with how that particular process works, but it sure does explain the seemingly endless stream of money flowing his way despite the critical and creative failures of all his projects. In addition, Boll has embarked on a terrifying crusade to adapt as many video games as possible into movies. His incompetent handling of these adaptations has led credence to the idea that video game-based movies are typically failures.
'BloodRayne' takes place in 18th century Romania and tells the story of a young half-vampire named Rayne (Kristanna Loken), who embarks on a quest for revenge against vampire ruler Kagan (Ben Kingsley) for killing her mother. During her quest, she meets up with a band of vampire hunters led by Vladimir (Michael Madsen), a man who would immediately lose a sword fight to Wesley Snipes' Blade. In true video game style, Rayne has to recover the hidden body parts of an ancient vampire in order to have a fighting chance against Kagan. Luckily, all three body parts are located within close proximity to each other.
The movie stumbles over itself on numerous occasions while telling its insane story to an audience that deserves much better than this. One thing I noticed immediately was its overused score, which accompanies nearly every scene just to add an epic feel to the proceedings, even when the scene involves someone simply opening a door. The dialogue is beyond bad. The script was written mostly to avoid contractions, so that we get sentences like "I do not know what has befallen him." Boll even tosses in a sex scene out of nowhere, just like he did in 'Alone in the Dark.' It involves Loken and a character played by Matthew Davis, and what I found particularly curious about this scene was a table placed strategically to block our view of Loken's butt, although a nipple shot was deemed acceptable to make the cut.
There are a host of other faults to mention. Undeveloped characters show up and disappear at random, for instance, but the worst offense comes every time Ben Kingsley is on the screen, sporting a wig that looks like it wasn't glued to his head properly. This list of infractions stems from Boll's lack of desire for craftsmanship. There's no incentive for him to be successful. As long as investors are willing to give him money, Boll will continue to ruin video games by creating these movie versions, even if they do resemble mucus from a bronchitis infection. I can only wonder what Uwe Boll might do if he decides to film Minesweeper.
*NOTE: More on film financing: http://www.slate.com/id/2117309/
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