Bloodrayne Movie Review... 3 out of 5 stars or something... :)

Went to see the Bloodrayne movie. If you aren't familiar with Bloodrayne, it is loosely based on a video game about a half-vampire, half-human young woman who sympathizes at most closely with humans. At least, the non-evil ones... My bottom line is that this movie was better than average, at least by the Sci Fi/Fantasy standards of the last 5 years. So, if the reviewers think this movie sucked, I think that says something quite obvious about the last 5 years of Sci Fi / Fantasy film.

The video game had a decent storyline and was set in or just before WWII, with game play occuring in Louisiana, Argentina and Germany. The plot and conflict centered around preventing Nazi Germany from succeeding in its quest to acquire certain occult artifacts. Most of this is fiction, although the Nazi interest in obscure artifacts and odd bits of mythology/history is well documented in respected non-fiction publications.

The movie departs largely from the plot of the video game, replacing the Nazi element with Rayne's father, who is seeking the same artifacts from the video game. It is set several centuries earlier, in Europe. Discarding the Nazi element was probably a good idea. It made the story, I think, a little more believable by keeping most of the fantasy elements well separated from known history. There were a few elements that I felt were underdeveloped. Given the overall quality of the scenes and development that was present in the film, I'm guessing this is largely the result of errors in the screenplay stage of production.

Without spoiling the movie, all I will say is that the most notable of these underdeveloped aspects is probably the involvement of Billy Zane's character. He plays a pivotal role, but we really don't have any insight into his psyche. His motivations are thus unclear, and it makes the pivot point seem very contrived and mechanical. I should take this opportunity to point out that what the movie lacks in depth it more than makes up for in blood. This is one of the bloodiest movies I have ever seen outside the horror genre. I'm not talking about body count, I'm pointing out the actual spraying of barrels of blood in combat. Given that it's a film about vampires, and rated R, that's probably not a bad thing, but this isn't Buffy and most people definitely don't want their kids watching this in home theater.

There were a few continuity issues as well, but most of them are minor and I'll let others dwell on them. All in all, I found the movie to be enjoyable. Rayne's character started out too vulnerable for my liking, and some of her choices seemed far too naive. Issues with the screenplay aside, the sets were good, the acting was primarily great, and the director did a superb job of translating the less than stellar screenplay to the screen. In fact, I think Boll did a finer job directing than he will be credited with, but that seems to be typical for game-turned-movie ventures.