Review of BloodRayne (2005) by Harry W — 14 Aug 2013

I figured Bloodrayne would be crap, because despite the fact that it looks well designed on the surface and has a good cast, Uwe Boll directed it.

And Bloodrayne's downfall is the fact that its uninspired. Uwe Boll directs the actors to attempt to let the story flow naturally and say their lines in the most bare basic manner possible, making them give nothing to the film but their reputations and physical statured. The plot is uninspired and bare basic with the confusion coming from the fact that the dynamics occur in so many places at so many times with unbalanced pacing that keeping up with them loses its worthiness. And the setting becomes dull and dreary, a world supposedly full of vampires in a manner not believable as it coincidentally occurs to all the main characters yet not to what the camera does it identify. Basically, the setting is weak, and the characters are all in dull costumes with obvious wigs.

But the lack of inspiration in the action is the main problem. The action seems too improvised, and clearly had to be performed by the actors who in fear of getting injured have moved slowly and softly, resulting in things being weak and not convincingly harmful as actions of violence. The editing was also a little fast, although no worse than all the crappy action films today like Taken 2 or A Good Day to Die Hard. Still, it could have been better, and could have done without the poor quality slow motion used in half of the most important parts.

Plus, the script and plot dynamics are a boring a dreary bunch with minimal creativity or originality, or even so much as the mind it a 3-year old's efforts put into it. It leaves little for the actors to work with, but they supply little themselves do it doesn't even matter, which is a shame considering the efforts of Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez and Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley at some of their worst. They put the physicality into their roles, but no heart of an actor. Plus, Kristanna Loken makes a bland lead as an actress who can work the physicality and show off her breasts without so much as a thought as to what her character might be thinking as something happens in the head of Rayne as she seeks vengeance for the "rape" and murder of her mother. She just becomes a hollow shell of a Uma Thurman wannabe who fails spectacularly.

Basically, Uwe Boll was given the budget for Bloodrayne but refused to give in enough effort to bring the $25 million into creating an atmosphere that Bloodrayne could work with, and although it seems like one of his finer works, that in itself is not a credential.