Bloodrayne started life as a computer game, but I've never played it, so I'm reviewing this film entirely on its own merits. I've never seen a film by director Uwe Boll before, and if this is indicative of his style and talent I hope never to see one again. In recent years he seems to enjoy adapting video games, with titles like Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead, Dungeon Siege, and this autumn's Postal. He also seems to enjoy violence, gore and boobies, which Bloodrayne provides in perhaps overly generous portions. Okay, let's be honest – this is just plain gratuitous. Gratuitous unoriginal nonsense at that. The plot is... um... confusing and forgettable, as I'm proving now. Essentially the central character Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a half human, half vampire person who kills really well. She is out to kill a nasty top dog vampire called Kagan (Ben Kingsley), and must collect some magical wotsit in order to do it. Other than that there is some personal tragedy back story, weird tribal posturing involving numerous cameo roles and a lot of blood. It feels like a poor Blade rip-off, which is probably where the computer game got it's inspiration. Once returned to the silver screen, Boll's direction takes a poor script (name and shame Guinevere Turner) and drives it into the ground, leaving a disjointed and gaudy mess.
Right from the start it's full of special effects, wobbly backgrounds, shaky cam, stylistic colour corrections for super-dramatic sunsets, jump cuts. Unfortunately it largely undermines a few effectively brutal moments scattered about the film. Then further undermined as each fight scene tries to outdo the last with ever more outlandish and disgusting scenes of murder. Decapitations, scalping, drawn out torture, various impalings through every part of the body, every possible limb is severed. The list goes on as the viewer becomes increasingly desensitised. The effects themselves are pretty good, whilst the fighting is quite implausibly over the top. However, one of the few things that kept me watching was to see how far they could up the ante on the gore.
The root of Bloodrayne's problems are that it has a weak structure that feels very much like watching a video game being played. It's mostly action scenes broken up by brief conversations and clues, which serve only to give exposition on the plot, and leaves the characters feeling barely two dimensional. Worse still, it fails to adequately get the plot across to those unfamiliar with the game. I could loosely tell what was going on, but only in the vaguest terms and with no vested interest in any of the characters.
Michael Madsen's character is introduced early on as a hard-nosed vampire killer in the blackest of manners, determined, and absent of emotion. He also seems thoroughly bored to even be there. With him is Michelle Rodriguez (currently in Lost), providing one of the more engaging performances, and Matthew Davis (who?) doing his best impression of dish water. In an attempt to entice more hapless viewers there are various dodgy cameos. Ben Kingsley's being the most notable as it's a vital role and yet has little actual screen time. He adds some authority to a an underwritten part, but again looks as lifeless as his undead character. Billy Zane appears – I have yet to appreciate the reason why. At least he looked good. Then Meat Loaf spends a couple of scenes giving his best vampiric version of Hermann Goring.
I do wonder if the writers looked at the script and thought, “we haven't filled all the prerequisites for a tasteless adolescent fantasy yet.” So they randomly have two characters have a big sex scene and later try to make out there is some kind of genuine relationship. It's a pretty pathetic bums-on-seats attitude to film-making when they should have been paying attention to story-telling. Further pointless excesses and clichés include lesbian kissing, surprise family members, and a tooled up training sequence.
In the second act it tries to create a brooding uncertain atmosphere. Building up the tension between characters, the tribal war games between head vampires. Due to the paper thin characters and lack of an inventive plot it plunges the film into a series of painfully dull and overblown sequences. Bloodrayne disappears up it's own arse as it uses every trick off the Lord of the Rings extras disc to aspire to an epic level it has no chance of reaching.
Then the most puzzling excess of all. At the end of the film, before rolling the credits we get what I can only describe as a two minute Montage of Blood. A compilation of all the most gruesome moments from the film crammed together for no reason whatsoever. I was simultaneously gob-smacked and in hysterics at the sheer audacity.
Bloodrayne deserves it's embarrassingly poor status on the internet. As of 8th May 2007 it had an average score of 2.5 out of ten, from 9,660 votes. Shockingly a sequel is on the way later this year, and Uwe Boll is still directing it. There are times when words fail me... This isn't one of them. Do NOT watch this film.
And it got six nominations in the Razzie Awards.
So far:
Best film – #96 Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – #95 The King and I (1999)
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