Bloodrayne

Return to the Main Page

Summary:
Rayne is a "damphir", a half-human half-vampire just like Blade! She goes on a quest for some items so she can destroy her most bitter enemy... her evil FATHER!

Review:
I was really worried going into Bloodrayne. I mean, it's fucking Uwe Boll! That rat-bastard, German tax loophole for movie failure making shadow of a hack of a hacked director! However, this screenplay was written by Guinevere Turner, who made a fantastic screenplay adaptation of American Psycho, so it had a chance... perhaps. OK, perhaps not!
Low and behold, to my ultimate surprise, Boll managed to make the best of what he had, which was winner material to begin with! I never really PLAYED Bloodrayne... well, I did, but only for the first half hour, but after I died and found out I couldn't skip past the 10 minute cutscene and had to endure every scene after each death, I thought "Fuck that!" and stopped playing. But there was definetely POTENTIAL for a great movie, I'm sure. There's - uh - vampires, blood, killing, as well as some kinda story in there, too, I'm sure. Yeah! And Turner sure did a great job, along with Boll's amazing abilities as director on this go around. He's definetely matured since his House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark days (a few months prior to this production). Perhaps this loophole of a big tax refund from failed movies ending in 2006 made him step up and take action, and show us moviegoers that he isn't a fluke of nature that scorns and dumbs down the audience for not appreciating his talent!
I've eaten my words. I had no idea that Boll could make what seems on the surface to be a brainless, corny, shoddy and worthless waste of celluloid, and turn it into a powerful message for America's current state with politics, the world, and our society as a whole.
From the opening scene, in which Sebastian proves his worthiness as a hero by noticing a guy is a vampire from not seeing his reflection behind him in the mirror and stabbing him in the chest, down to the final scene (I won't spoil it!), I was thoroughly impressed with every moment of splendour. This is Madsen's greatest film since Reservoir Dogs! I haven't liked Michelle Rodriguez in anything since her awesome introduction with Girlfight, because she's always the butch-ish bitch who has to kick ass. No range. This time around, she's also a butch-ish bitch, but she's AWESOME! Sometimes it seemed as if her accent was lost, only to return half a sentence later, but then I realized that it's an indication of her current emotional state, and while she's in mid-thought, she speaks differently according to her mood! I laughed out loud at the horrible wig that Billy Zane had on in his first scene. It looked like it had been run over by three 16-wheelers, then thrown into a murky bog to add oily substance to it, and was thrown on his head before it could dry! However, that's not a bad wig; Meatloaf takes the cake on that one! Then I realized; the badder the wig, the badder the bad guy! See? There's so much SUBSTANCE to this soon-to-be classic!
Kristanna Loken reacts like the Terminatrix from T3, and doesn't like to use contractions (in speech) to show that she's not from a normal place... she was raised in the freakshow circus, so how ELSE should she talk, right? Ben Kingsley is a daunting force of malicious nature every second he's onscreen. I just wish that when the young virgin-like girl was brought to his throne, and he says "do not be afraid" before he digs in and eats her that he would have torn her top down to show some boobies. That would better solidify the significance of his tyrannical rule TEARING DOWN society a thread at a time. Get it? It must have skipped Boll's mind during the filming of this scene is all, so she's fully clothed. Sadly.

Don't worry, folks, there's still some nudity that is essential to the plot! Meatloaf lives in a haven of naked girls who are stragetically placed just enough to show some booby, but it's never NOT tasteful. No bush (see? PRESIDENT Bush!). I had to laugh when there were some people chained up, and a guy walked by slicing their arms and throats for fresh blood to put in a goblet. It might sound sick for me to say this, but the sound of the small rivulets of blood going into the goblet sounded like a small stream - of piss into the toilet. It amazed me that there could be so much noise with so little blood, especially since blood is thicker than water. However, I realized once again that it's a metaphor to our current political state. The enhanced noise refers to the dramatic loss of our liquid assets - the current economical state of the United States. Once I thought of this, I stopped laughing right away. I had to remain quiet for 30 seconds in respect to those who have lost so much in so little time these past few years. Damned 911.

There's also a scene in which Sebastian and Rayne have sex. At first, it was like it came outta nowhere. I did not see one second beforehand in which they even gave a HINT of attraction to one another, but in retrospect, their fiery passion was evident from the moment their eyes locked. I was just too stupid to realize it until afterwards. She rips her top off and starts snogging him like he was an oasis after days of no water in the Sahara (more on water later)! Then, she mounts him like an eager camel missing its' hump, and proceeds to hump him helpless, all the while the cell door clangs with each eager thrust. POWERFUL!... and once again, a dark reminder of the sudden attack of 9-11... we should have seen it coming, but we didn't and were caught off guard!

There are so many other moments within this movie that kept my jaw dropping, all the while managing to entertain throughout. I wanted to puke during the final battle scene, with the non-stop camera and undercranked Gladiator-like choppiness, but once again it's a symbol for the insanity of war. It's SUPPOSED to be nauseating! Oh, and Rayne burns at the touch of water... but getting the first artifact (an eye) helped make her immune to water! Thank God the chamber where the Eye was kept started FILLING UP with water! Perfect 'trap' for a vampire grabbing an artifact that will make him/her immune to water! Normally, things like this would aggravate me in a movie - especially a Boll flick - but this time around, I realized that there is much more to Boll than I once thought. Hell, more than what ANYONE thought, except for the big name actors who choose to be in his movies! Obviously, he was able to sell them (or buy them) enough to get them to be in his movies. This whole time, it was ME who was ignorant, and I never realized that Uwe Boll is a gem of a director who shall not be taken lightly. Move over Spielberg and Kubrick, there's a new man in town!

See this movie! You won't believe your eyes! You'll be Boll-ed over with the juicy symbolism on America's current state in society!

GRADE: F

Trivia:

I really liked that shot of what looked like it was supposed to be Rayne on a horse with her cloak on. It looked like a pony going up a hill with a dummy on its' back, the way the cloaked body was jittering to and fro, as if there was no weight to it. Yet another symbol... was it a donkey and not a pony? As in the DEMOCRATS? With a dummy on the donkey? As in, our current leader... BUSH?! Riding the Democrats?! Nah, it couldn't be! Could it?!

Reviewed: 1/12/06