Oh, Uwe Boll. You are a man to be congratulated. Here I was, thinking you were making bad movies on purpose to spite Americans. Indeed you were, and I'm not sure if you changed your mind as a result of reading this website. I made a comment in the last review of your film-making career that "BLOODRAYNE BETTER BE AWESOME, BITCH." I was so serious about that, because my buddy Ted (last referenced in the Freestyle story "Pennies From Heaven") play-tested the video game you based your movie on. So what do I get when I ask you to make Bloodrayne awesome? A decent effort. You tried to make it awesome. It shows in every frame and choice made in the production of this movie--which counts as a period piece for you, "Herr Direktor". But enough about you, sir, let me address the people.
As the movie opens we find ourselves in 18th Century Romania (where else to film a fantasy picture?) and traveling with three members of the Brimstone Society, a vampire-hunting clan. Their leader Vladimir (Michael Madsen) and his two subordinates Sebastian (Matthew Davis) and Katarin (Michelle Rodriguez) follow up on a lead given to Vladimir by the Regal Monk (the institution that is Udo Kier). It's about a dhampir--a half-vampire--and its location in a carnival sideshow. They follow the clues and show up the morning after said dhampir goes bezerk and escapes. The three hunters kill all the witnesses (?!) and leave to search for the dhampir, staring at square one.
Also at square one is the escaped dhampir, Rayne (Kristanna Loken). She's never killed another to drink blood before, and she's lost in the woods with a heavy conscience. It's only after she saves a wagon of innocents with her bladed tonfa (that's nightsticks...to all the chicks) does she have the will to move on. She makes her way to a town and speaks to the fortune teller(Geraldine Chaplin), who tells her of her past and her future.
Turns out that Rayne is the offspring of a human female (DERP) and Kagan, King of All Vampires (Ben Kingsley). Kagan murdered her mother and never got a chance to claim his daughter. Rayne's destiny is to avenge her mother by killing Kagan, but not before she gets the Quest Items. In order to become as powerful as Kagan, Rayne must get her hands on three relics of a destroyed vampire: his eye, his rib and his heart. She gets the eye after an awesome trap escape, but Kagan gets the rib with the help of his loyal human thrall Domastir (Will Sanderson, an Uwe Boll stable actor). The battle is on to get the Vampire's Heart, but with Katarina's focus on issues contrary to the group be the death of them all? With the money Herr Direktor spent on make-up effects, they better damn well die...or get hurt really bad at least.
Oh, I almost forgot: at some point, Billy Zane, Michael Pare and Meat Loaf show up in cameo appearances. Not sure why, but they do.
Folks, if you can't tell this is a bad movie, lemme rephrase the above paragraphs: it's an UWE BOLL FILM. While the movie was still bad in many parts, it did have its moments. Michelle Rodriguez could really play a female warlord, if such a part was written for her. You already know that Ben Kingsley is above this, so he's really there for the paycheck and competing with Billy Zane for the title "King of All Hams". Michael Madsen is rocking the mullet extra-hard, and mumbling his lines. With all this going on, you'll still learn that Meat Loaf will do anything for love--even show up in an Uwe Boll film. Herr Direktor is also learning to ape better movies, like the expansive shots that copy from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. All good and positive things on the set of Bloodrayne. And then there's Miss Loken.
Nothing bad comes from her; she works with the material given. It's just that I really had my heart set on her becoming an action "It Girl" after her performance in "Mortal Kombat: Conquest". To see her in this movie, fighting with crap swords and wearing straight-leg pants in the 18th Century just made my skin crawl. She could do so much better. Hell, the movie could've been so much better. Then came the boob. Note the singular form of 'boobs' in the last sentence.
There is a sex scene in BloodRayne that is so horribly shoehorned into the movie that as erotic as it could have been (much better than Alone in the Dark but nowhere near Queen of the Damned), it was laughable. Not saying that having a dhampir rock your world in an underground prison is a laughing matter, just that character development would have helped this to be an even better bad movie.
CHOICE CUTS:
- You'd think that after being in two Uwe Boll stinkers, you could still find another person to make bad movies with. See you on the set of FarCry, Mr. Sanderson.
- Billy Zane's cameo proves that almost any movie can be decided on the performance of Billy Zane alone.
- Katarina's horrid faux-British accent.
- Sebastian's death scene. It makes sense, but...doesn't.
- Wow, I haven't seen Michael Pare since Village of the Damned. Nice to see he's found work.
- The trap scene was really nice; Rayne had this look on her face like, "WTF? How am I gonna do this?"
- The acting duo of Ben Kingsley and Michael Madsen, back together again since the first Species.
- Kristanna Loken's performance during the sex scene. I thought she was gonna bite him during the sex; he deserved it for leaving the prison door open. Since she didn't, we all got to see the boob.
- The character of BloodRayne has no reference whatsoever to the 2000 AD character Durham Red, despite the fact that both are red-headed vampire assassins with a taste for leather...
RATING: 4/10
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