After I was pleasantly surprised by the general enjoyability of In The Name Of The King - A Dungeon Siege Tale, I thought I'd brave another of Uwe Boll's infamous video game adaptations to see if I could scrape up some more morsels for recycling into Dungeons & Dragons inspiration.I went for BloodRayne as it featured vampires, swords and the mega-hotness of Kristanna 'Terminator 3' Loken in the lead role.
Some films are renowned for being 'so bad' they are 'good' - BloodRayne isn't one of them.
Loken is Rayne, a half-human/half-vampire sired by Ben Kingsley's Kagan, lord of all vampires.
Escaping from the circus that was somehow holding her as a performing freak, she is tracked down by a band of vampire hunters - Vladimir (Michael Madsen), Sebastian (Matt Davis) and Katarin
(Michelle Rodriguez).
Despite being members of a vampire hunting order called The Brimstone Society (in fact Vlaidmir might be the leader, it's never really made clear), they team up with Rayne and go looking for some payback against Kagan.
There are some powerful vampire relics thrown in as a scavenger hunt (although why the human's holding them didn't just destroy them is, again, never explained) and a slightly-confusing sub-plot with rebellious vampire Billy Zane, who also happens to be Katarin's father (I think).
Zane only appears in two scenes, but they are certainly the funniest - and not just because of the awful wig he is wearing.
Meanwhile Rayne is training with the Brimstone Society in their top secret island lair and has a random sex moment, getting 'em out for Sebastian - who seems as shocked as the audience as none of us had seen that coming... not that we're complaining, mind you.
All this nonsense is supposedly taking place in 18th Century Romania, but it could be Greyhawk, Ravenloft or countless other pseudo-medieval Dungeons & Dragons realms for all the verisimilitude or attention to detail.
The plot stumbles towards a final confrontation between father and daughter, in which we quickly realise that a lot of the brouhaha around the relics was just a red herring and finally Loken shows us some half-decent fight moves (having looked rather uncomfortable up until this point).
Lifeless fight sequences, uninspired performances and a confusing - possibly incomplete - storyline, can be blamed on the director.
However, Mr Boll can't be blamed for everything: Guinevere Turner's script has more info dumps of exposition than actual dialogue, for instance. When actual dialogue is allowed to sneak in - barring Billy Zane's couple of deadpan comedy zingers - it is of the lowest calibre, not helped by the top-flight stars delivering their lines in varying degrees of mumbling or monotone.
The only role-playing game moment that is possibly salvageable from all this is the near-Total Party Kill the script delivers quite spectacularly at its climax, although BloodRayne doesn't so much end as just run out of script with a blank-faced Loken slumping down into her father's throne and staring forlornly into the camera.
Good review. In The Name of the King is hands down, the best thing Uwe Boll has ever done...ever! And, since it's just a fun flick at best, I'd suggest saving your time and skip the rest of his "work" if I were you.
ReplyDeleteLoken is beautiful, and pretty good in an action role. The cast for BloodRayne is good enough that the movie should have been awesome. The script should never have been green lit. I'm not sure if that exposition was required by Boll or the studio, or the writer just thought it needed to be there, but it was awful.
There was so much that could have been done to make that movie cool, and they missed them all.
Thanks for the feedback, Tomcat - I won't be rushing out to see any more of Uwe Boll's "work" in the near future :-)
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