Bloodrayne - A Movie Review

Hi All,

Let me start by saying I have never played a Bloodrayne game ever. I've seen clips of it on G4, but that is about the extent of my exposure to it. I only went because my friend (who loves Bloodrayne) wanted company. As a result of watching the movie I will probably never play any of the games for fear that one of the actors might have had a voiceover in one of them. Or worse, Uwe Boll could have directed.

Yes, it was that bad.

In a nutshell, the movie is about a half human half vampire woman named Rayne (Kristanna Loken) who is on a mission to avenge her mothers death. It turns out that her father, who was the one that murdered her mother, is also the most powerful vampire in the world. He is hell bent on acquiring some artifacts that will make him almost a god. Once Sebastian (Matthew Davis), Vladimir (Michael Madsen), and Katarin (Michelle Rodriguez) realize that their mission is the same as hers they team up. There were several other plotpoints but all they really did was convolude the story.

The pacing of Bloodrayne felt particularly rushed, which is ironic because I wanted the movie to end as quickly as possible. You never get a chance to get to know any of the characters and their motivations are never really understood. Such as why was Rayne more angry over her mother being killed when she was a child than by the fact that she was living in a cage for the past several years? Because of the backstory they drew up (she was a circus attraction) one would think her words and actions would be a bit more primal in nature and her anger would primarily lie with her captors. It started a bit in that direction (which was good) but then once she found out who killed her mother her focus completely changed as well as her demeanor. It felt like the writers had a story they wanted to tell, but knew they had to sprinkle in parts of the videogame in order to keep the fans happy. As a result Loken was all over the place and unfortunately none of it was believeable. Couple that with physically not selling the fight sequences (it felt like anyone could do what she was doing with a week or two of training) and you get an all around bad performance. (It actually made me really appreciate what Jennifer Garner was able to do with the sais in Elektra)

It wasn't all her fault however. Madsen's performance was equally bad. Both his acting and fight sequences were not up to par with anyone else in the cast. Davis (who I thought was good in Tigerland) was hollow as Sebastian. He had one emotion throughout the whole movie. (except during the sex scene, which will incidentally go down in history as one of the most awkward and out of place sex scene's in movie history. Seriously, a sex scene in War of the Worlds between Steven Spielberg and Kathy Griffin would shock me less.) Michelle Rodriguez was probably the best actress in the movie. She made the most of what she had to work with. Seriously...

I think the worst part about this whole thing is that Bloodrayne is just another in a long line of videogame to movie disasters. It actually got me to thinking if the issue is in fact with the writers and directors of the movie or if it is with the source material itself. The videogame Street Fighter is about a fighting tournament. You don't really know anything about the characters and you don't really care. You just want to fight people. Was the movie bad because there was no story to really build on or because Jean Claude Van Damme was in it? In the Doom videogame you go around shooting things. I don't even remember what the point of that game was, besides shooting things. Again Doom the movie didnt have much to draw from except for knowing that there had to be alot of shooting. (And Rock, whoever is picking your movies, fire them. If it's you, go back to wrestling.) I think movie producers need to realize that just because a game has a fanbase doesnt mean that a) it will translate to a movie audience and b) they will be able to create a story from it.

From what my friend told me (he hated the movie as well) the Bloodrayne story was in fact a good one and they messed it up. (Same thing happened to Resident Evil I think. Games good, movies bad.)

So if you like vampires, don't watch this movie. If you like Bloodrayne, then definitely don't watch this movie.

Score (1)

4. Buy it!
3. Rent it!
2. Download it!
1. Don't even bother its crap!