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Site created 12/15/97.
page created: 10/17/07
 The Hell Plaza Oktoberfest CONTINUES... Adam Jahnke - Main Page |
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| I'm
no expert on all things Uwe but I have seen the first BloodRayne
movie and it's just awful. It makes virtually no sense and is only
amusing if you get off on seeing actors like Ben Kingsley embarrass
themselves for an easy paycheck. BloodRayne 2 picks up a hundred years or so after the first one. Rayne (now played by Natassia Malthe, taking over the leather corset abandoned by Kristanna Loken) has emigrated to America, still hunting down vampires. This time, she's on the trail of Billy the Kid (Zack Ward), who was apparently a Transylvanian-accented bloodsucker. When Billy kidnaps the children of a family that Rayne has some vague, never-explained connection to, she takes it personally. Her first attack goes badly, so she rounds up a posse of outlaws (pretty easily, actually) and rides back into the quiet little town of Deliverance for one final midnight showdown. BloodRayne 2 is a marginally better movie than its predecessor, which doesn't mean that it's good or even more entertaining. The fun of watching actors like Kingsley and Michael Madsen chew the scenery is gone. The biggest name here is Michael Paré as Pat Garrett. (You know... Michael Paré? Eddie and the Cruisers? Streets of Fire? No? Not ringing any bells? Oh well.) Anyway, the cast isn't bad and Boll has a few tricks up his sleeve. Rayne walks into a kind of nifty trap that Billy's set up, where she opens a door and starts to hang all the kidnapped kids, who have been lined up with nooses around their necks. That's kind of cool. But five minutes later, Rayne's still holding onto the rope, trying to figure out what to do. That's bad directing. Vivendi's DVD saddles the movie with a muddy transfer and a poorly mixed audio track that often makes it difficult to make out the goofy dialogue. Extras include a "making-of" featurette, some tedious deleted scenes, extended versions of three other scenes, and an often amusing commentary by Boll, joined for the first part by cinematographer Mathias Neumann. There's also a digital comic book about Rayne and her mentor trying to prevent a vampire from being dubbed the new Dalai Lama (I swear) and a second disc that apparently includes a complete BloodRayne video game. I'm not in the business of reviewing video games so I didn't play it but I might someday be bored enough to fool around with it and if I do, I'll be sure to update this review. Don't hold your breath for it, though. So is Uwe Boll as lousy as his reputation suggests? On the basis of the BloodRayne saga, I'd have to say he's not THAT bad. Certainly in a weird way he believes in what he's doing, so I'd never accuse him of being a hack. And I'd say it's more likely that I will watch and even enjoy a future Uwe Boll movie than... say, Who's Your Caddy for instance. BloodRayne 2 even has some vaguely enjoyable moments, even if they are mostly lifted from Sergio Leone flicks. My biggest criticism of the film is that horror movies and westerns aren't two great tastes that taste great together. As a low-budget western, parts of BloodRayne 2 work. But in a vampire movie, you don't bring a gun to a stake fight. Film Rating: C- Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): C/C-/B- Adam Jahnke ajahnke@thedigitalbits.com |
Adam Jahnke - Main Page
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