Bloodrayne

Base on a video game that I never played, it was directed by the infamous Uwe Boll, a man known for adapting video games into movies and doing a bad job of it. Personally, I’m so happy with the effort that I tend not to judge too harshly, but I will note Bloodrayne (as with a lot of his dude’s stuff) is one of those movies that I’ve seen only once a long time ago, can’t remember anything about it but felt uninterested enough not to try again.

Now that I’m quarantined I’ve got nothing but time on my hands so this was the perfect time to try again.

The fucked up thing about this movie is that it’s a stellar all-star cast. Kristina Loken, who was on the rise at the time. Michelle Rodriguez, also on the rise at the time this movie came out. Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, (A great actor who does not mind being in a horrible movie. Does this guy like gamble or does he have a cocaine problem?) Billy Zane, and Meatloaf, who if you ever listened to Bat out of Hell, his role as a fat wealthy pimp in this flick fits perfectly.

Wondering is the success of movies like Resident Evil and Underworld, which were starting their franchises at the time had any influence on this movie getting greenlit. After all its a similar premise of an action packed female lead going up ageist monsters.  In this case all the action scenes revolved around sword fighting, which is a difficult move in difficult movie.

The movie’s biggest fault is that it’s boring, Boring me is something a movie should not do, especially a movie that’s trying to combine as many genres as Bloodrayne: Action, adventure, horror, fantasy all rolled up into one. Plus it’s rated R for bloody violence and a little nudity, Yet as I watched this movie my mind began to wonder, if not for the fact that I was sitting up as I watched it, I probably would have fallen asleep.

It’s movies like this that make me give props to such directors like Steven Spielberg and Martian Scorsese who seem to have a combo of skill and talent to make every movie they do become something that I can watch without wanting this nightmare to be over.

So now I’m kinda insulting Uwe Boll. I don’t really want to do that. I’m know there are a lot of elements that go into a movie and Spielberg and Scorsese are at a point in their career where they can control and demand all those elements while Boll may have found it hard to control all those elements, which is a thing with cheap films that borrow content from another media that’s not a book and need to be made really quickly with a lot of people being able to add their input. I will say that from what I know of Uwe boll he does stand by his finished product which is admirable (but is most likely why he’s being picked upon as a director).

Poor Kristina Loken, I don’t know if this was her first film where he got breast naked (in an horrible love scene) and I’m not counting her butt shot in the third Terminator. It does say a ton about a movie that one can mess up a love seen that has jiggling tits in it but Uwe Boll seems to mange (their I go again).

All the elements were their not for a good movie but for something that a niche market would attach themselves to forever. I’m sure Bloodrayne does have that, despite what a waste a time this effort seems to be.