Bloodrayne: Deliverance

SEPTEMBER 30, 2007

GENRE: HORROR?, VAMPIRE, VIDEO GAME
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I’ve said before, I got no problem with Dr. Uwe Boll. In fact I admire the guy. And it all began at the premiere of the first Bloodrayne, which was the first “Hollywood” thing I did after moving to LA. While HotD and AitD were pretty bad (though in an insanely ridiculous way), I found Bloodrayne to be a much more competent film. The acting was all over the place, but the script and production value were certainly a vast improvement over his last two, resulting in one of the better video game movies. And Boll did a Q&A that revealed to me how much the guy simply loved what he was doing, and had an amazing sense of humor about himself. And then Postal was just hilarious (intentionally) and felt nothing like his other films. Essentially, he kept improving as a filmmaker with each film, so I was pretty excited for Bloodrayne: Deliverance, but for the first time, I don't see the continued improvement from Boll.

To be fair, the film only had like 1/3 the budget the original did, not to mention none of the same actors (except for Michael Paré, who plays a different character). And as revealed on the commentary, the film had a miserable shoot in Canada (due to snow and rain). Unfortunately, that joyless experience translated to the screen for the most part. Much of the film is just, well, DAMP. It’s the vampire movie equivalent of those Sunday morning fishing shows.

Plus, it’s not even really a vampire movie. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if the film was written originally as a standard western and then quickly reworked into a Bloodrayne sequel. Evidence of this abounds in the fighting scenes, in which vampire noises are randomly dubbed in over standard fights with anonymous goons in western attire. Rayne only uses her powers once or twice throughout the film, and most of the deaths are caused via shooting.

However, it’s not a total loss. The 2nd half of the film improves over the first, as Rayne puts together a random team of vampire hunters (including a Hart Bochner-y priest, whose insane sermon that provides his introduction is the film’s highlight) to take down Billy the Kid (Postal’s Zack Ward). Also, Ward’s evil vampire bites (and thus kills) a couple kids onscreen, so at least Boll has got balls. There’s even a pretty nifty trap he sets that threatens to hang like 6 of them at once (and one of them DOES die! Yes!). And from a technical standpoint, the film is fine. Not sure if I agree with the directing style Boll adapted here (handheld, sort of like Battlestar Galactica at times), but it’s never incoherent, as some of his earlier video game films were. And the western-y score is pretty rousing. Also, there’s an AMAZING bit of meta humor during the opening credits, as the “An Uwe Boll Film” credit appears over not only a shot of the Statue of Liberty, but a crowd cheering can be heard as well.

Unfortunately, Chris Coppola is in this film. And, like Postal, he’s the worst thing in it. I don’t know what it is about the guy, but he just irks me, and whereas in Postal he was simply annoying, here he seems completely out of place as a nerdy and whiny reporter doing a story on “The Wild West!”. I know Boll likes to reuse the same folks (speaking of, where the hell is Will Sanderson?!?!?) but he needs to ditch this guy from his troupe.

In the end, it won’t exactly win over anyone who dislikes Boll, but the good news is that it won’t add any fuel to their fire. The commentary is more enjoyable than the film, especially once the DP leaves Boll to himself, and the good doctor begins talking about whatever comes to his mind, including cleaning his dogs, the cable ratings for Alone in the Dark, and of course, German finance/distribution information. He also takes a phone call and then informs us that it was his mother telling him about a sale on mountain bikes. Sadly, he checks out with like 10 minutes of the film left, and the audio just goes mute. There’s also a set of interviews that not only uses the Alien music that you hear in like every movie trailer, but also crops the top and bottom of the film out for some goddamn reason.

Say what you want about his other ones, but this is the first time one might actually call a Boll film boring (even Boll himself seems a bit uninterested; in addition to leaving the commentary early, he is heard yawning several times and has quite a few gaps in his discussion, which is unheard of for him). Taking the budgetary and shooting limitations into account, it’s not as bad as it could be, but it just seems like everyone was just going through the motions.

But hey, at least there’s no footage from the game.

What say you?

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Horror?, Vampire, Video Game,

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Resident Evil: Extinction

SEPTEMBER 21, 2007

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, MONSTER, VIDEO GAME, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

What the hell is up with the part 3s this year? First the 3rd Pirates movie eschews action in favor of an endless cycle of scenes in which people backstab one another, then Ocean's 13 forgets to be funny, and now Resident Evil: Extinction delivers less action than either of the previous installments, and can barely be bothered to even stay consistent with itself, let alone the other movies.

In one of the laziest rewrites I've seen in a film since Speed 2, the character of Claire Redfield is clearly just Jill Valentine with a different name. Since the actress who played Jill was off making Eragon, they just used a different name from the games and got another hot "tough" chick (in this case, Ali Larter), but didn't bother really MAKING her Claire Redfield (or anything, for that matter - she is entirely wasted in the role, as is pretty much everyone else in the film that isn't Milla). Where she comes from (or why the other surviving cast members from the 2nd film are following her around) is never explained, just like where Jill went is never explained. "We don't care, audience," the screenwriters are saying. Well, fine. But then, why should we?

And hey, you know, fuck the previous films... Extinction doesn't even address itself half the time. Milla Jovovich's Alice now has telekinetic powers, which are so strong she is able to disable a satellite orbiting the earth. Yet, 15 minutes later, she has to struggle to reach a knife. I won't make a "use the force" joke, but for the love of Christ movie, pay attention to yourself! And hell, if her powers are that strong, why fight at all??? Seems like you can just use your mind to make all the zombies go away.

Everything in this movie is pretty half-assed, with two exceptions. The direction is the best in the series (dim praise, but hey), thanks to Russell Mulcahy. Of course, I am a fan of Russell's, for many reasons: he directed the last theatrically released Dolph Lundgren movie (Silent Trigger), he is friends with Jim Steinman, and he directed the Total Eclipse of the Heart video, which is more terrifying than any of the films I have watched for Horror Movie A Day thus far. The other exception is the effects - they have come a long way from the first film, which had some truly awful CG. Here the CG is used more or less sparingly, and the makeup effects, particularly on the "Boss" monster at the end of the film, are quite well done.

Everything else is just totally lazy though. No one seems to be trying at all, Even Milla looks bored half the time. The action scenes are largely inconsequential (the first one could be removed entirely and it would have zero bearing on anything), the editing is way too rushed at times, and the established rules are only used when necessary (for example, a character who is bitten by a zombie takes a full DAY to turn). The characters are so interchangeable, you will think one of them is seemingly resurrected, because another one-dimensional guy who looks just like him was killed earlier, and we never really know either of them.

Now, obviously I didn't go into Resident Evil 3 expecting to be wowed by rich character development. And at least the 2nd film had the good sense to keep the action almost nonstop, knowing that any attempts at characterization and engaging story would just be ludicrous. Here, they eschew action AND characterization for endless scenes of the scientists at work, doing things like trying to domesticate the zombies. These scenes ultimately serve no real purpose at all, since the idea is dropped almost as soon as it's introduced. There's also some nonsense about Alaska that is never satisfyingly wrapped up. The action scenes are fine, but as said, they are inconsequential, and far too infrequent. Even the climax lacks any sort of oomph; the film ended at a point where I was sure there was another 20 minutes to go.

Everyone keeps saying this is the last one, and/or that Claire Redfield would be the new main character in a spinoff. I'm not totally opposed to the idea, but this film is clearly designed to have a sequel, as it ends with two big plotlines just being set up. So they damn well better have another one, because they more or less ruined this one by taking so much time setting it up.

And for the love of Mike, how hard is it to decapitate a goddamn zombie once in a while? Alice kills like 20 of them via a machete to the neck and not a single one loses his head in the process! Come on!!!

What say you?

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Mad Scientist, Monster, Video Game, Zombie,

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