Action Movie Fanatix Review: BloodRayne

Live To Kill.  Kill To Live.

Starring: Kristanna Loken, Michael Madsen, Michael Pare, Billy Zane, Michelle Rodriguez, Ben Kingsley, Meat Loaf, Darren Shahlavi

Director: Uwe Boll

2006  |  94 Minutes  |  Unrated

“Everyone that comes near me dies.” – Rayne

Another Uwe Boll movie, another video game adaptation.  I am going in to this with extremely low expectations.

Kagan (Ben Kingsley), a vampire king wants his half-human, half-vampire daughter, Rayne (Kristanna Loken) to become a full fledged vampire.  Instead, Rayne decides to join a band of vampire hunters led by Vladimir (Michael Madsen).

BloodRayne certainly isn’t a top notch video game property.  I don’t think any tears were shed when people found out this wasn’t a great movie.  The funny thing is, it isn’t horrible as one might expect.

The production is really top notch.  It isn’t surprising that this cost 25 million to make considering the property, production and cast.  The sets are big.  The scenery is beautiful.  The weapons and attire look pretty darn good.

Rayne’s first blades are a little chintzy and definitely seem like they should have had something to keep them attached to her arms instead of falling off the minute she loses her grip.

What the hell is Ben Kingsley doing here?  The guy must have needed a paycheck or else Uwe Boll is one hell of a salesman to get him to believe this was going to be something special… Gandhi, Schindler’s List and BloodRayne.

The rest of the cast puts forth a valiant effort but you can tell there was no real vision behind the camera.

The story is sort of plodding.  It has a point but it takes a lot of time to get where it is going.  There are some decent medieval fights along the way but they feel so few and far between.  A movie about an attractive girl with blades on her arms really shouldn’t be boring but, at times, BloodRayne definitely is.

I will say the final fight scene is pretty entertaining and features some very video game inspired moves.  Rayne does a sort of tornado blade spin that I am sure was ripped straight from the game and pulls off a Cynthia Rothrock-esque scorpion kick.  Pretty cool.

BloodRayne is a case of a production having a lot of the right pieces to the puzzle but not having someone in charge who isn’t capable of fitting those pieces together.  There are a good number of name actors who are genuinely putting forth an effort to bring life to these characters.  The production was clearly a costly enterprise but when it was all added up there was something very important missing.  BloodRayne is far from horrible but the direction is the biggest deficit.  Had the story been told a little better this could have been a pretty fun time.