BloodRayne (2006)

It's Wednesday again, and we are back again with another Uwe Boll film. Making one terrible film is an achievement enough, but this is our third time on this rodeo now with In the Name of the King and Alone in the Dark already featuring previously on this blog, and I know it's old hat to poke fun at how legendarily bad Uwe Boll is but as part of the blog Mission Statement, I have to sit through these films, ok? They made the list. I gotta watch them. And given that we scored the last efforts with a 2 and a 0 respectfully I don't exactly have high hopes going into this feature. 

Right of the bat as the intro credits roll, look at that casting! Michael Madson, Michelle Rodriguez, Udo Kier (yes!), Geraldine Chaplin, Ben Kingsley, fucking MEAT LOAF?! Who the fuck is financing these shit movies to draw in such legendary actors?! Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a vampire held prisoner in a circus, or at least she is briefly, after a botched attempted rape she escapes and ruthlessly slaughters everybody before fleeing into the forest. When word of her existence reaches Master Kagan (Ben Kingsley) he vows she must be found, and presumably killed as she poses a "great threat", because exposition. Meanwhile the "Brimstone" trio of vampire hunters; Vladimir (Michael Madson), Sebastian (Matthew Davis) and Katarin (Michelle Rodriguez) on their way to track down "the she-devil" (presumably Rayne) happen upon what's left of the circus and proceed to decapitate and burn all the bodies... presumably this stops them becoming vampires not just because... y'know they thought it would be kicks... before setting off to a nearby village. Witnessing a stagecoach attack, we learn that Rayne, despite being a vampire, is herself a vampire hunter and err... not on their side for want of a better term and after hitching a ride with the stagecoach family meets up with a fortune teller (Geraldine Chaplin) who recognizes her as a dhampir; part human, part vampire, and informs her that to find Kagan, who she knows is her father but whom she wants to kill for killing her mother, she should retrieve an eye talisman from a cave that Kagan seeks. Meanwhile Elrich (Billy Zane) pens a letter to his daughter, Katarin, to return to Brimstone to protect a talisman lest it fall into the wrong hands... Learning that Rayne is seeking the eye, Kagan sends Domastir (Will Sanderson) to find her, but let her lead them to the eye first, whilst Domastir's passing is observed by Vladimir and Sebastian, arousing their suspicion. Seeking refuge at a monastery, Rayne is awoken during the night by voices in her head which lead her to a *checks notes* giant thrall in the basement; a big looking disfigured guy with a hammer which she handily kills, and uses his crucifix necklace to obtain an eye in a box which she absorbs into her... but not before a... Regal Monk (Udo Kier)... seriously... is that the best you can do with Udo Kier?...a "regal monk" catches her creeping around and escorts her back to her quarters where Udo explains that there are 3 talismans; an eye, a rib and a heart that all belonged to an ancient vampire who overcame the 3 dangers to vampiric existence but upon his death was dismembered and those 3 talismans hidden from other vampires. But their conversation is interrupted when Domastir and his army attack the monastery with the Brimstone trio arriving just in time to fight them back. Domastir kills Udo... so that's the end of that cameo I guess... and escapes with an incapacitated Rayne on horseback. Domastir takes Rayne to Leonid's (Meat Loaf!) Palace where there is some weird vampire sex orgy going on... for shelter until nightfall but he is followed by Vladimir and Sebastian and after a fight breaks out the pair manage to escape with Rayne, with Leonid burned to a crisp by sunlight in the process. Thanks Meat Loaf. Vladimir and Sebastian take Rayne to the Brimstone headquarters where they learn from Katarin that Kagan has the rib talisman. The trio take turns in training Rayne to fight, who up until this point was pretty handy with a sword anyway... so that she may help them against Kagan and for some reason Rayne and Sebastian have sex... fair enough? Meanwhile Domastir turns up on Elrich's doorstep believing him to know the location of Brimstone, and rejects Elrich's offer to turn against Kagan and join him in usurping the vampire throne. After some light persuasion he presumably gives Domastir the location of Katarin and Brimstone because Domastir rocks up there with an entire army... Meanwhile Vladimir, Sebastian and Rayne are away collecting weapons and it is only upon preparing to return do the learn that Brimstone was sacked, and that Katarin has betrayed the society. Rayne makes the decision to leave the pair, seeking the heart talisman and returning to Brimstone, finds Katarin in an underground waterlogged cave also seeking it, wishing to return it to her father and the pair have a clumsy underwater fight resulting in Rayne killing Katarin but getting the talisman. Meanwhile Vladimir and Sebastian travel to Kagan's castle and watch as Rayne walks right in there with the heart, immediately taken prisoner... Vladimir and Sebastian quickly follow suit, bursting into the castle only to be captured... Rayne is later taken out of her cell for "the ceremony" and similarly Vladimir and Sebastian both escape interrupting the ceremony just before Rayne is about to get her eye carved out. In the ensuing battle Kagan, with some assistance, kills Vladimir and Sebastian kills Domastir but not before being wounded by Domastir himself. Rayne fights Kagan and is almost overcome by him until some assistance from a dying Sebastian turns the tide and after overpowering him she is finally able to slay Kagan and in the closing scene takes her seat on his throne.

Well, first of all, fair play to this movie with a 1 hour 23 minute run time they certainly crammed alot in and at times the pacing was way off as they skipped from scene to scene but it somehow, if albeit confusingly, managed to keep something of a consistent thread throughout although there was certainly room to pad parts out, and flesh out certain bits that would have helped develop the story better, but this... this was a least a movie. It's leagues better than Alone in the Dark and felt less of a drag than In the Name of the King if nothing else but it had it's slightly... bizarre moments that felt completely ill fitting... why did Sebastian and Rayne have to have it off? Why was Meat Loaf surrounded by naked Romanian prostitutes... It all felt a bit like fan service to me...

Unfortunately, and it is a massive wooden stake to the heart, this movie really suffers from the same issue that plagues all videogame adaptations. The stale, corny exposition; "you are the chosen one", "there is a prophecy..." that usually flies in video games because, for the most part, the storyline is secondary. Not that there haven't been videogames with great story, because there has, but when it is weak and thinly spread it can usually get a bit of slack. But you don't get that same liberty with a movie, and the same tired, cliché storyline of a everyman (or woman in this case) rising up to become legendary as part of a prophecy or whatever is rolled out again, so in that regard the movie brings absolutely nothing new to the table with the only additional flavouring being that it's vampires this time. Which is nice, but we've had similar experiences before now with that sub-genre.

And regrettably once that aspect is discounted there aren't a great many other things this movie can warrant itself on. The special effects, while decent in areas, were largely ropey and quite low budget in comparison with the rest of the production. There was definitely evidence that some scenes had to be shot in a certain fashion so as to be more easily edited post production although there was a few good moments where the special effects team had chance to flex their muscles; Domastir's death scene in particular, but ultimately I found it a little bit disappointing.

The fight scenes also came off disappointing, there were moments where it felt like the actors were fighting for the first time, or had clearly not been shown how to fight and were just winging it. If there was any choreography, it was poor, there was a better fight scene in last week's movie and that was a Disney family comedy! The only part I thought was particularly impressive was Kagan and Rayne's fight at the end, where I felt Kagan really fought like an experienced, level headed, and technically superior vampire, but otherwise the rest of the scenes felt really amateur.

And then finally there is the acting. I wasn't mega familiar with Kristanna Loken going into this and initially I felt like she was mega out of her depth, but as the movie progressed I warmed to her a bit more and I'm not mega familiar with Bloodrayne or it's characters but if she was supposed to be emotionally aloof and reserved whilst at the same time struggling with his anger and ferociousness, she mostly did alright. I struggled with Michael Madson as Vladimir and he was just Michael Madson in a wig. Sorry. And Ben Kingsley similarly just didn't do much for me here. I felt like he was only really giving it about 50% of his effort and I've seen him act much better in other things. I didn't get the feeling that the actors here were really enthusiastic about the project and felt like most of them put in an adequate enough performance to earn a pay day before swiftly moving on.

Aside from that soundtrack was fine, and adequate if not a little uninspiring and I've no faults to raise with the cinematography. There were a handful of scenes well shot in my opinion, even the drone footage of horse riding scenes didn't kill it entirely for me and for the large part everything was shot perfectly fine, accounting for the deliberate, methodical shooting of some moments within the battle scenes.

This is the first Uwe Boll film, of the 3 I've watched so far at least, that I feel could have really been better than what it ultimately was. In the Name of the King was ultimately hampered by an uninspiring lead actor, amongst other things, and Alone in the Dark was just complete bum gravy, let's not even go there, but this... this had potential. Kristanna Loken is a good lead, it had a... decent story, if not cliché and stale, it had a decent cast but they just came across as so unenthused to me. With a little bit longer on the script and a, well, alot more belief in the project by the key members of the cast and with more time spent on shooting and choreographing fight scenes, you could have lifted this movie to a decent result, but in the absence of all that it ultimately boiled down to a semi-rushed, paint by numbers action movie doomed to be ultimately remembered as nothing beyond video game adaption movie shovelware. And that is a shame, really. 2 out of 5.