In our next entry of the Spooky Virtua Month of SPEEWWWWWWWKINESS, we take a look at one of the abominations of the gaming movie horror genre.So, it's not so much a horror movie as it is an untententional comedy. Uwe Boll strikes a lesser known gaming franchise, BloodRayne, a game where you play as a vampire. I have never played it and have no idea if I ever want to. This film, however, is one of Uwe Boll's goofier attempts at the gaming movies. The world he built in this movie made no sense what-so-ever, the largest plothole is that vampires are apparently weak against water. No, not holy water, just water. Since blood has plenty of water in it and that is one of the dumbest weaknesses I have ever heard of for a vampire, we're already off to a great start.
Kristana Loken is already in some gaming hot water for Mortal Kombat Conquest, starring in the first BloodRayne isn't helping her case. At least she only stuck to one. Loken is not especially bad in this movie. No, but everyone else has basically checked out, especially the late Michael Madsen. The combat is laughably bad, as is the blood and gore effects. Even Meatloaf is seen for a very short period in this movie and he just adds to the wackiness.
This is probably the worst movie I have ever seen Ben Kingsley in, and that's really saying something. He is a great actor, but he has starred in or co-starred in some pretty terrible films. I haven't seen them all but this one has not been topped yet. He gives no effort in his performance and is in the film for maybe a total of five minutes. He gives nothing to the film and his one scene with Loken is really, really dumb. That's not even getting into Michelle Rodriguez, who just plays the badass boss girl like she normally does. She pulls it off to an extent, but there's really not a great deal more to her character.
If you think really, really hard about this film, you can kind of think of a couple elements of it. There is a very shoehorned in love scene, also a really dumb artifact that makes a vampire immune to water. The mere fact that they are weak to water was ridiculous to begin with. Being weak against water technically kind of makes vampires weaker than human beings. The very idea that they would make that one of the center plots of the entire movie is just twice as baffling. It takes up the better part of the entire film.
There's no such thing as subtlety in this film. Dialogue is overly straight foward to the point where it is unrealistic. People spout out exposition on a whim, Loken's character, Rayne, is a blank plank of wood and about as complex as a ten piece puzzle. She just goes on her journey the moment she hears about this eye that makes her immune to water and off she goes to find it. It's not especially hard to get, other than the extremely fast blade trap, but Rayne beats it immediately.
Every element of this movie is pourly made, from the computer generated images to the practical effects. It's worth watching if you're in it for the "so bad it's good" quality. In that case, you will probably get what you came for. The dialogue is so comically bad that simple ruses work on evil henchmen and guards. When it's convenient for the plot, people die on a whim and Rayne doesn't really seem to have a great deal of trouble when it comes to combat and escaping dire situations. It's infamous for how bad it is... but sadly, it is the greatest movie in the BloodRayne trilogy... yeah, chew on that for a moment. Virtua Vampire Nightmare.
