BloodRayne (2005)

Time: 95 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence and sex scenes
Cast:
Kristanna Loken as Rayne
Michael Madsen as Vladimir
Matthew Davis as Sebastian
Michelle Rodriguez as Katarin
Ben Kingsley as Kagan
Director: Uwe Boll

Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a half-human half-vampire Dhampir out for revenge for the king of the vampires Kagan (Ben Kingsley) who killed her mother. In her journey she meets Vladimir (Michael Madsen) and Sebastian (Matthew Davis), the leaders of the fortress of vampire hunters Brimstone, and joins their society to face the forces of Kagan.

Uwe Boll has been called one of the worst filmmakers of all time; because Bloodrayne was on TV I decided to check it out, and I’m now paying the consequences. It has wooden acting, a shallow, uninteresting plot, and poorly done action scenes. I haven’t played the video game it’s based on but I feel sorry for the fans who were subjected to this abysmal adaptation.

The plot goes so fast it’s hard to understand what’s going on. We also don’t know anything about these characters so we can’t really care for them; they make the characters from The Happening look like the Guardians of the Galaxy. The dialogue is not used well; it is either used for backstories, moving the plot, or exposition. The movie doesn’t even say what time period it’s in or where it is set. The film also has some odd ideas such as having normal water hurt vampires; here they are like the aliens from Signs. The last scene is a montage of whenever blood has been spilt and is nearly 4 minutes long; it comes out of nowhere and doesn’t make any sense in any form of context. Surprisingly, the screenplay was written by Guinevere Turner, who previously wrote the screenplay to American Psycho. It turns out that Uwe Boll demanded that she handed in a rough copy of the script and that he went with that version, so that explains a lot of the problems.

Kristanna Loken was quite wooden here and barely showed more emotion than the T-X in Terminator 3. Michelle Rodriguez doesn’t give that good of a performance either, however she does seem like she’s trying to give a good performance. A stand out bad performance is from Michael Madsen, who doesn’t show any emotion throughout the movie and looks drunk (which he was) and bored; even when he’s fighting people, he doesn’t change his expression. There is a major thing that happens to him near the end which I won’t spoil (in case some of you actually want to see this movie) but he doesn’t even change his expression for that. He really looks like he doesn’t care, just look at this image down below, he’s not even holding his sword right.

Billy Zane is only in a few scenes in this movie and doesn’t make any impact on the plot. Ben Kingsley plays the villain and most of his scenes are very short, barely lasting for 30 seconds; his performance is unfortunately phoned in, which is a shame. I won’t even go into the hammy performance from Meat Loaf as he was only in one scene.

The action scenes are not done that well; there is a fight between Rayne and a big monster; there were so many cuts in that scene that I wonder how much of the footage was cut at just the right moment. The blood in this movie is so exaggerated that Quentin Tarantino would probably roll his eyes at it. There is one moment where a guy is cut in half at the waist but if you slow it down, you can clearly see his real legs behind some fake legs. The costumes are also questionable, particularly Rayne’s, one has to ask what type of person would wear that in any time period.

Bloodrayne is a terrible movie; it’s not a so-bad-it’s-good sort of bad movie, it’s just boring. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to watch this movie (then again if you already know about Uwe Boll you probably weren’t even thinking about doing that) as there’s nothing enjoyable about it unless you are someone like me who wanted to make fun of it.

Advertisement

Fight Club (1999)

Time: 139 Minutes
Age Rating: Graphic violence and offensive language
Cast:
Edward Norton as The Narrator
Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden
Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer
Meat Loaf as Robert ‘Bob’ Paulson
Jared Leto as Angel Face
Director: David Fincher

An insomniac office worker (Edward Norton) forms an underground fight club with Tyler Durden, a soap manufacturer. This fight club grows bigger over time, as does its scope. It eventually starts growing bigger than he could ever think it would. This film is based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk.

Despite the title, Fight Club isn’t just a movie about people fighting. Fight Club isn’t a movie like you’ve ever seen before; it’s a psychological journey and presents social commentary about many things such as consumerist culture. It’s also a movie that somehow can still be relevant today. With outstanding performances and many meanings behind it, Fight Club is definitely one of Fincher’s best films and has continually held up for 15 years.

It is best watching this movie with as little background information as possible because it’s best experiencing it without knowing much about the plot. Don’t even watch the trailer; just watch it as soon as possible. As for the messages to be taken away by the viewer; there are many different opinions I’ve heard from different people. Whatever the ‘true’ meaning of this movie is however; is completely left up to the viewer and that can lead to interesting discussions with other people who watched it. As for the comparison to the book, in my opinion the movie manages to take the story from the book into many places that it never originally went. The ending of the movie is brilliant and the last shot of the movie is beautiful. Actually, the second to last shot of the movie is good also.

The characters are really interesting and well played by the actors. Edward Norton plays our unnamed main character and narrator throughout this story as we follow him through these crazy events. Another shining point is Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, this is one of the best performances that have been put on screen. He is entertaining to watch but also has a philosophy which makes this movie unique and mostly defines this movie. This performance is Brad Pitt’s best and no other actor could have given a better job than him portraying this character. He is definitely one of the most memorable parts of this movie. Helena Bonham Singer plays a character called Marla Singer who becomes a key character in the story and she is also played very well.

One of the best things about David Fincher is his ability to make a movie look incredible. The style of the film is really engrossing and eye catching, especially when there are scenes narrated by Norton. I also really like the intro animation which really gets the audience ready for the movie. I’ve noticed that all of David Fincher’s movies’ intro animations are always good. I also love the soundtrack by The Dust Brothers which fits in so well with the movie. Also, without spoiling anything, the last song in the movie is absolutely perfect for the ending and makes it even better.

This movie is very memorable; even months after watching it for the first time I was still thinking about it. This film has a lot of re-watchability and has many hidden gems in the movie that viewers might not get the first time watching and there are many meanings to be interpreted. Fight Club is a movie to see as soon as possible, even to just have an opinion on it. This movie is one of, if not David Fincher’s best work that he’s ever done, I’ve so far liked everything that he’s done. Whether your interpretations of it are, Fight Club is a brilliantly acted, visually stunning masterpiece that you will never forget. It is one of my all time favourite movies.